I did not realize it was possible to balance a wheel and tire package and not have to add additional weights.
The non car enthusiast of you may not know this, but when you go get a new set of tires, the technicians have to put the wheel and tire setup on a balancing machine. Because tires are not perfectly round rotationally out of the factory. (And your wheels, after many miles of battering, aren’t likely to be perfectly round either.) Guided by the machine, the mechanic attaches tiny grams of weights onto the inner wheel rim to make the whole thing roll smoothy.
I recently got a new set of wheels for my MX-5. Two of them were brand new, two of them were used from eBay. I bought tires from Tire Rack, then shipped directly to the local America’s Tire for mounting. (Both have been and remain excellent companies to deal with when it comes to tire needs.) Upon receiving the wheels with tires mounted, I noticed one of them did not have any wheel weights glued to it.
I flagged an America’s Tire staff person to inquire about the perceived discrepancy. Perhaps - this was a busy store on a Saturday - they forgot to balance one of the wheels. After checking with the technician who performed the job, the staff responded that particular wheel balanced with the tire without weights. Alright, I will take your word for it. Sorry for besmirching the quality of technicians. I wasn’t really familiar with your game.
If this were one of the brand new wheels, it wouldn’t have been that alarming. You’d expect a new wheel plus new tire have a higher chance of making perfect balance. But this was one of the eBay wheels off a 30,000+ miles wrecked car! It was initially kind of difficult to believe that wheel balanced out without any addendum.
Indeed that is the case. After mounting the wheels onto the MX-5 and taking it out for a spin, there were no abnormal vibrations. I mean, you’d know if a wheel is off balance, especially at highway speeds.
You make spin right round right round.