amazing what balancing correctly can do

[Atomb]

i have aftermarket rims which require hub sleeves....there have been issues with balancing as a result but i found a place that does a good job.last time i got my wheels balanced (July) they kept the hub sleeves in the rims while balancing. as a result, the car drove 'smoothly' (no vibrations, etc.) but always felt a little twitchy...hard to explain.last week i had my tires rotated and noticed that there was vibration at higher speeds in the steering wheel. so i went back to the shop and explained the situation and this time they balanced with the hub sleeves removed and the mounting plates directly bolted to the rim.the difference is staggering. the car feels like it's stuck to the road on rails...a VERY noticable difference.If you have rims with hub sleeves, find out if your wheels were balanced with the sleeves in or out, and get them to balance with the sleeves out.just passing along an experience that might help one of you!

[djb383]

I recently had a balance problem with factory 16" alloys and new tires and had to go back for re-balance four times before they got it right. They (Discount Tire) told me my factory rims were lug-centric rather than hub-centric and they didn't have the right adapter(s) for my wheel and their machine. Sound bogus to me, but any how, I think the factory rims are hub-centric, but I'm not positive. Can you explain what a hub sleeve and mounting plate are, what they do and possibly post a picture of them?

[Atomb]

i didn't get into that much detail regarding hub vs. lug centric styles of rims.The hub sleeve is a plastic piece that slides into the centre section of the rim. This way the same rim can be used on various cars with different diameter hubs (sorry, to take a picture, i'd have to take off one of my wheels and it's so nicely balanced right now, i don't want to jinx it. i'll take a pic in a few months when i get them rotated again).....it supposed to centre the wheel on the hub. when i first got my car, one of these sleeves was bent out of shape and boy did my car vibrate!the fixutre they used to balance my wheel without the hub sleeve mounted the wheel to the balancing machine via the lug holes instead of through the centre hub...so that may answer the hub vs. lug centric qualities of my rims?

[jasonvibe]

DJB383, they were giving you a line of BS. Hub centered simply means there's an axle like hub that the wheel rests on to center it prior to putting the lug nuts on? 99% of the cars out there have this! If they can't balance your wheels? Don't go back there again for another set in the future.

[Mavrik]

I need to get myself some hub sleeves... the center of my rim is like half an inch away from my hub...but I only run those rims in the summer anyway. Still though I wish they would sit on the hub, better support.now unless someone doesn't know what they are doing, any tire shop can balance pretty much any rim that comes their way. I like the one we got at work. It can show tire pull, rim runout and even tells you from the readings, which tire should be set where on the vehicle for best results.

[Atomb]

what i think happened in my case:it is possible to balance a wheel by mounting the rim on an axle and then there's a cone shaped bracket that tightens the rim to the axel...they were doing this with the hub sleeve still in my rim and i was still having issues...they then took the hub rings out and instead of the using the cone shaped bracket, they mounted a plate which bolted into the bolt holes on the rim...this bracket then attached to the axel for balancing.