Rebalance after any repair that takes the tire off the wheel
A common story: a tire picks up a nail, gets repaired, and goes back on the car. The leak is fixed. A day later there is a shake at highway speed that was not there before.
The repair itself is rarely the cause. What happened is that the balance was disturbed along the way. When a tire is taken off the wheel to be patched properly from the inside, it almost never goes back on in exactly the same position relative to the wheel. The heavy and light spots of the tire and the wheel, which were balanced against each other, are now in a different arrangement. A patch adds a little weight of its own. Sometimes a wheel weight is knocked off in the process.
The fix is simple: any time a tire comes off its wheel, the assembly should be rebalanced before it goes back on. That applies to a puncture repair, to a tire remounted after a valve stem replacement, and to a wheel that was taken off for any other reason that involved breaking the bead.
Other moments to rebalance
- A wheel weight lost to a curb or a pothole. Look for a clean patch on the rim where one used to be.
- New tires, always.
- A vibration that appears suddenly at a particular speed, after something changed.
If the shake does not go away after a balance, the cause may be the wheel, a worn part, or alignment. Wheel refurbishing and car and light truck alignment are both at this store. The national tire and wheel balancing page covers the other occasions to ask for it.
Other stores nearby
De Soto and Washington also balance tires and wheels.
About this store
The Fenton store carries all nine Purcell tire categories and is managed by Daniel Garcia.
See the national tire and wheel balancing page for all 51 locations.