Check if you can buy genuine MB 2-piece balance weights at your local MB dealer, or from their source.

__________________
Fred Hoelzle

I've seen them at Advance Auto Parts yesterday

__________________
1999 w140, quit voting to old, and to old to fight, a god damned veteran

The two piece weights are very nice if you have the tool and a good selection of weights. I have gotten to a point where I use tape weights on almost everything except for standard steel wheels.

I keep solvent and a rag on the top of my balancer. I clean the area well where I am about to put the weight and when I'm all done with the wheel, I use my weight tool plier gizmo and hammer on the weights to set the glue. From what I can tell I have never lost one of these weights and I don't have to have a small fortune invested in various weights only to still need a weight size that I don't have.

Works for me.

There was a time when I lived rural and was constantly getting flats. It got so frustrating trying to get them repaired, they always wanted me to drop it off till tomorrow. Then they doubled they're rates to $14. Thats when I bought a manual machine. Mine is a TSI brand and cost almost $300, but ive had it over 15 years now and its paid for itself two or three times, plus the convenience is priceless. I was even able to install 16.5 skid loader tires with it, so its strong enough.

But balance is another thing altogether. Back when I was at vo-tech, when I was young, they had 4 different spin balancers plus the on car snap on one, 5 all together. I had 4 new tires put on my car, and the shop used an old antique bubble balancer. In my young and impressionable mind, it looked stone age, and I proceeded to take the car into school and balance them properly. But ya know, that car was smooth as glass right up and over 100 mph.

So the first chance I had I started spin balancing them. It shook. Not bad mind you, but never as smooth as what I started out with. I eventually used all 5 balancers, and not one of them came as close to the smoothness I had after that guy bubble balanced them.

I took the car back to the guy and asked if he would re-balance the tires. He looked at me funny so I apologetically explained what I had done. He re-balanced them all again, and let we watch while he explained. He not only split the weight side to side, he spread it out radially about 30 degrees apart.

And I will tell you all right now, dynamically balanced or not, the wheel still has to be in balance statically. If its out of balance statically its going to vibrate or shake. And, in fact, if its out statically, its out dynamically as well. You can have static without dynamic, but you cant have dynamic without static. Good dealerships (like some Mercedes) pay to have their balancers inspected and calibrated on a regular basis, most tire shops do not. If those machines get off, they are a guess at best. An old school bubble balancer, OTOH, never lies, and never needs correction.

I recently bought an F350 dump truck that shook so bad I swore it had a bent drive shaft. But while I was under it I noted one of the rear duals had two giant weights on the inside. I rolled over and looked at the other side, another big line of weight. I crawled out and started looking, both sides of all six wheels had huge amounts of weight. I grabbed my weight tool and pried it all off. I think all told I yanked about 4 pounds of weight off that truck. It no longer shook either. There is your spin balance for you.

Now before all these braniacs come in talking all the scientific virtues of electronic spin balancers and how stone age a bubble is, it should be pointed out that all airplane propellers, even on $million turbo props are static balanced, as are helicopter blades. In fact balancing a heli rotor blade is a very elaborate process, and its all manual. There are no electronics involved. Now its true, a wide wheel and tire is harder to static balance, and thats where the need for dynamic comes in. Sometimes you just cant get the wide ones "perfect" with just a bubble. But the bubble should always be right on after the wheel comes off a spin balancer. If your spin balancer isnt getting the wheel in static balance, it needs to be corrected.