not real sure what they mean? all input welcome.
some say its a balance/reference,....others,...it means nothing.
notice

, one tire has a GREEN DOT, ansd it appears to be SHAVED.????

 

there is also 2 marks inside the tire.

 

why diff colors?

 

 

these tags on the inside dont mean anything? they corospond with the painted marks, exactly.
just dont want a rookie to mount em.
im told its where the valvestem should go? idk? conflicting reports.
heck, does the color of the dot mean anything?

the 1 tire has clearly been shaved for a pre-balance.

im all ears.

 

I just had new tires put on my Subaru Legacy and they had those dots. I asked Town Fair what they meant when i picked my car up, they said those spots are used for mounting locations and balancing.

 

thank you for your input Patrick.

all other opinions welcome.

 

The closer the valve is to the dot when mounted, the less weight will have to be added for balance.

 

Wow those are some nice looking tires and should hook you up pretty good.

 

thank you guys! keep the info/opinion pool coming. i wanna know what these colored marks mean. im reading yellow for light weight. red for the heavy spot.
whats green mean?

why the markers on the inside, that happen to corospond with the dot

coincodence?

all ears again.

help us do this correctley.

 

I don't know for sure but maybe green is good to go.

 

sounds good to me !!!

was just wondering?

 

Post a picture of your car when you get them installed.

 

will definetly take some pics with the new meats.

heres a pic from last year. my kids better be happy with POPS set-up. lol.

 

bump.

tire pros needed.

 

The quick answer is they are mounting and balancing reference points. Tire manufactures use a red dot to make the heavy spot on a tire and a yellow spot to make the high spot. Each manufacture is a little diffident so the different colors in this case green instead of yellow. In theroy you can not make a perfectly round tire so there will be a slight high spot (don't worry its not going to give you bad ride quality) and the materiel never gets dispersed with in the mold 100% equally so there is a slight heavy spot too. Also just like every tire every wheel is different and the valve steam hole is likely to be the lowest spot on the rim so matching that with the high spot will in theory give you the best ride quality but that is in a perfect world. And the tags on the inside are manufactures note like who inspected the tire where is was made and the like. The scratches looks like shipping damage but i cant tell from one small picture. My advice is slam them on and go racing! At your local track of course.

 

all i know is that on a toyo tire or most tires that a les schwaab would sell goes like this. red dot is the high spot yellow dot is the light spot(line this up with the valve stem, atleast thats what they teach us at tire camp in prinville or.) othe tire manufactures may have different colors. just know that one is the high spot and one is the light spot. when you go to get these mounted do not let them use the weights that get hammered on the lip of the wheel, they can fly off with a hard launch.

 

And there you go bro now were did you pick up your STB?

 

thank you everybody for your responces. btw, that scuff mark is all the way around the tire, not shipping damage. ill pass this info on to the tire guy.

the STB is homemade. the bent tubing came from under a rear bench seat in a ford windstar. the other parts came off an old go-carts steering linkage. i added a few shock extensions and welded them for good insurance. may not be the prettiest, but it works. lol. originally i made it for a tpi engine, but had to modify it later when i went to carb.

 

I am almost done with mine maybe this weekend will get some pictures of my home made wonder bar also. I like yours also I think the home made stuff has character.

 

Well, considering I'm a tire shaver part-time...

I'll confirm the dots as light/heavy reference points. If there's only one dot, line it up with the valve stem to minimize balance weight needed. Also, for the places that charge extra for balancing, some old-school guys will tell you that lining up the mark is good enough, and they don't really *need* to be balanced beyond that...

I can also assure you that tire was NOT shaved. For one, if it were, all the little rubber "hairs" in that area would be gone.

If anyone has tire-shaving questions, let me know...

 

I'm sorry I didn't read all what was said about the dots. I work for belle tire and WAS a tire tech and at good year too. The dots are just indications where the bead was welded and are the heavy spot on the tire, on the rim the valve steam hole is the light spot but the steam is heavier than the hole they took out. If your rims are not bent or damaged in any way it do not matter.

 

Not if you use the weights with the correct clip profile for that wheel lip (do you have your little cardboard profile guide?).

Several pieces of advice I would give on balancing-

#1- If your wheels do not have lips (most newer aftermarket rim are like this) and the place wants to use stick-on weights, be sure they do an aluminum-optimized (some call it a different name) balance. This is where they use TWO sets of stick-ons- one at the back side edge of the wheel, and the other as far toward the outer edge as you can get (usually just inside the spokes). If they want to "static" balance the wheels, tell them you'll only pay half the normal balancing charge, since they're only doing half the work and using one set of weights. Actually, if they didn't know how to do the optimized, I'd go elsewhere.

#2- Make sure they use metal tape over the stick-on weights if your brakes will see any real amount of heat. Let's say you work your brakes real hard. They get hot. You "cool them down" like you should by driving a bit, but then park the car. There's still enough heat there to soften the adhesive, and off some your wheel weights. The tape helps by holding them in place, but also by reflecting the heat somewhat so the adhesive doesn't get soft in the first place...

#3- If a place won't let you watch if you request to, move on. Yes, there are insurance rules, so you can't stand OVER them and watch, but they should provide some place where you can observe what they are doing. Talk to the guys. You can usually get a sense very quickly if you should trust them.

Remember, your suspension, brakes, driveline, and all the other stuff don't mean squat if your wheels and tires aren't done properly. They are your link with the road.

 

Cast rims are made uneven any way so the weight it off any way. When they balance (before weights are added) if its under 1.50 oz you are ok any more have them spin the tire, if its 3 or more oz for a car rim its bent or made (cast) poorly

 

Except that when you use stick-on weights on the inside, you'll need more weight to balance (Moment of Inertia and all that). I've seen wheel and tire combos that took a total of almost 10 (yes TEN) ounces to balance- straight wheel, not a defective tire- and on the car you'd never know it. I've also seen a bent rim that *the balancer said* needed NO weight (even loosened it up on the balancer, spun it 180*, and ran it again), that would damn near shake the car apart on the rear, let alone putting it on the front.

Machines can only do what machines do- it's the operator that counts.

 

U are wrong like all of it no disrespect but heat tape that will throw off the balance, some rims can only get static balance cars with funny off sets, big brakes, little clearance, and if your brakes are getting hot enough to melt the w8s well what u care for a balance your tires will be replace in a few laps. If u haven't balanced a million wheels than don't give advice, u are a customer, sit in the lobby drink the free coffee, watch TV, and wait till they call your last name. If u drive smooth go home if it shakes come back. 1 last thing it happens all the time it shakes a 75+ mph balance mechine is speeds up to 60mph. U should never do that speed in the U.S. roads

 

its funny that weights got brought up. i had a set of regular street radials mounted last year. the guy said my rim was out of balance.? i know what the stick on weights are. he decided to use OLD SCHOOL weights on the outside of the rims. said it will balance better. idk? just thought i would mention it.
those scuff marks go about 1/2 to 2/3 around the tire in the same spot. i ASSumed it was a pre-balance thing.?
again thank you guys. im not too old to learn. this knowledge pool is awesome!

 

I would never let anyone mount weights on the out side of one of my Camaro wheels. Myself along with countless others work way to hard to get everything just right and then to mount weights on the outside of my wheels is just not happening.If the shop insist than I'm going to a different shop, besides if the wheel is bent/out of balance that bad it needs to be replaced.

 

In theory, clip on weights on the wheel lip work better because they are closer to where the imbalance is. That said, if you don't want weights on the outside of the wheel, don't have them put them there. You can still get a great balance using the two sets of stick-ons.

Out of Sojer's entire rant, he did bring up one valid point- if you have clearance issues, then static balance may be all you can do. I find that situation to be rare, as those of use who've been doing tires for 25-30 years like myself can find ways to make it work *most of the time*.

Again, talk to the guys, get a feel for their level of expertise, and make your own judgement. I'd say that goes for most things, including internet message boards.

 

SCCA is right, i also recommend going to a place that has a hunter balancer and can road force test the tires as well. Cheap insurance.

 

i also agree with what scca said, i just didnt think i needed to get to imdepth over tire balancing. as for the hammer weights there is more than one kind some for alum wheels and some for steel wheels, most places only have one set. for you guys that dont want them on outside of the wheel to save scratches any good place can use hammer weights on the inside of wheel and sticky weights toward the out side of the wheel.thats what we did for those situations.they should even be able to hide them behind spokes but that takes a good machine. my advice is to not use hammer weights on a set of drag wheel and make sure you put tape over the sticky weights , we used duct tape but to each his own.

 

[quote=Sojer;5241699] if your brakes are getting hot enough to melt the w8s well what u care for a balance your tires will be replace in a few laps.
are you sure you have balanced a million wheels? out of all the million you have never taken a wheel off and had it be hot? (not melting metal hot but warm enogh to hurt if you dont have gloves on) its not the weights that melt its the glue that gets hot and lets loose. i have seen this first hand.

 

i didnt know the bead on a tire was welded together , i gues i did learn something today

 

scca i have a question for ya , there would be guys coming in to the shop asking if we shaved tires because if you get a white walled tire you can shave it out to make the white wall bigger, like the ones you see on vw bugs and other old school cars. is that right will it come out to be a thicker white wall?

 

Stroken-

I have only shaved the tread. I'm really not sure that would work, but I would not attempt it anyway. I think those guys saw that when people curb their whitewall or white-letter tires, you see more white. I'm not sure exactly how wide a whitewall is under the other layers of rubber, so I'm not even sure it would do what they're saying.

Most importantly- on my machine (as well as any machine I've ever seen), I can't really take off less than .005" at a time with any accuracy. If you cut more than a few thousandths into a sidewall, you'd really be risking compromising the tire.

They'd have better luck jacking up their tire and spinning it while taking a belt sander to the sidewall.

Tell them to buy tires with wide whitewalls if that's what they want.

http://www.dbtires.com/tires.html

Oh, and sorry for the dissertations. I was intending to stress the idea of getting a knowledgable, trustworthy shop, and instead I turned it into a class on tire balancing.

 

ya we did get pretty wraped up in balancing. as long as you take it to a good shop they will know how to take care of you. a good way to know about the place is ask about the dots if they know what you are talking about their probably good to go. the place i worked had different people that were better at certain things, i did mostly low profile tires ( i hate it when they had the tpms sensor on a 30 series tire) and other specialty set ups. not every guy working there could be the one doing it.

 

its all good. i appreciate all the input. ill go to a reputable shop and probe theyre brain first. i had a feeling the dots meant something. another cool member on here made a call to mickey thompson and said they dont mean anything. i just wasnt too sure, cause id heard something about it before.
just waiting to get paid on a few jobs so i can mount em. this has to be the worlds slowest, budget build. lol.

 

On a different note, try using a longer bracket for your front throttle return spring to keep that spring from pulling diagonally.
Your throttle shaft will thank you. The steel shaft wears out the soft aluminum carb base when it's pulling funny like that, and eventually causes a vacuum leak. & cool car.