equal tire balancer

[anthony]

just curious,
has anyone out there tried equal tire balancer? I was thinking about trying it out and would like to know about anyones experience with it!!

 

[Pugsly]

Lot of posts about this on the old Dweb. Some people love it, others hate it.
I would recommend trying it only if you have exhausted all 'normal' methods to balance a tire...

 

[AndrewClarke]

Works for me.

I've had it in my Dunlop Radial Rover R/T 235/85s for about a year and a half. I don't have any balancing weights on my rims and they seem fine to me. I'd use it again. The only downside is that you have to pump air into your tires before airing down, otherwise the equal gets stuck in the valve sieve that comes with the Equal and airing down is sloooww.

- Andrew.

 

[marc olivares]

Dont' waste your time

like pugsly posted, this topic has been discussed repeatedly and people either like it or not.
my experience with equal is that is works fine at speeds below 65 and when the tires are warmed up.
but when tires are cold, it takes a bit for the equal to balance.
after 65mph the equal has a tendency to go in and out of balance.
it is most noticable on long drives when speeds are maintained for a long time, then change suddenly (traffic etc...) it takes the equal a bit to correct the balance with the changes in speed. i run HWY 6 at 75-85 and it drives me nuts.

if if wern't for my habitual laziness i would have removed it long ago.
FWIW, my buddies and i ut equal in our tires at the same time, and i'm the only one with it left.
my next set of tires will have weights.

 

[marc olivares]

oh yeah, and air-down times do suck, even with Stauns!

 

[anthony]

well, guess i will stick to weights then

 

[draaronr]

Now the otherside of the coin I think equal is the greatest thing since sliced bread. On long trips I have noticed no problems, biggest benefit is you can't knock it off wheeling like weights then you have a real rough trip home. I run 265mt that are retreads and I love the stuff, as far as air down times like said above just hit it with a blast of air then it airs down normal

 

[Lutzgaterr]

I am runnig 235/85 BFG MT. Less than 3K miles on these, used 4oz each tire. I certainly agree with the observation of balance loss at 60mph or above. I thought at one point my U-joints were failing me, but no, it was the Equal. I am wondering if more was added, say 2 ozs/tire, that the addition would reduce this in&out of balance issue at highway speeds.
Anyways, on the positive side, most of my road-time is under 50mph (back and forth to work) and the tires ride like glass. I also like the idea of not having to worry about re-balancing these tires in the future, thus longer tread-wear (so they claim).
Jury is out for now if it goes or stays...
BTW, not a single tire dealer or auto shop that m&b's tires whom I have called, will support the use of Equal, besides loss of balancing revenue and warranty revenues, they can not articulate why, but simply hate it. Hmmm, why would I ask in the first place and expect an inteligent answer?
Other negatives: puncture a tire, harsh bead breaks, slow air-downs, dry air-ups, all will require new Equal or affect the Equal performance.
Other positives: mud-in-rim no problem, rebalancing eliminated, longer tread wear, no wieghts, etc... So, is the answers added to the confusion?

 

[koby]

I agree with the loss of balancing over 60 mph. Actually, 70 mph is the magic number for me.

I've broken beads with equal in the tire and I don't think I lost a single granule of Equal.

Airdown times are not really a problem for me. Blast some CO2 from the PT in there and ti's a done deal. there's usually one or two people that don't have stauns, so we have to wait for them anyhow.