It is vitally important that your customers wheels are balanced properly. Improperly balanced wheels can lead to a rough ride, especially at higher speeds, which will cause all kinds of headaches for you and your customer. Fortunately, modern wheel balancing technology has come a long way since the bubble balancers of old, and then the static wheel balancers after that. The modern Wheel Balancer offers precision and accuracy that it’s predecessors never could. They offer such capabilities as dynamic balancing, which measures balance based on more than one plane, and even “road force” balancing that can simulate the forces as if the wheel were actually riding on the road.
As with any piece of auto shop equipment, the more features and capabilities you get, the more the machine costs. So a shop owner must weigh the benefits vs. the cost. For a high volume tire shop, the extra features could be worth it. Time is money. If your technician is spending time chasing weights or diagnosing a vibration issue, you could wish you had sprung for the more expensive machine. Nobody likes comebacks. As they say, “time is money”. Premium features include automatic calibration, hidden spoke mode and automatic parameter entry, where the user doesn’t have to manually enter the parameters. Some models have printers so that you can point out to them the diagnosis of the machine so they can see it for themselves. Some machines even have a wheel lift, so that your technicians can save their backs.
To increase accuracy on high end vehicles, some folks get a mounting flange kit. This allows you to mount the wheel to the machine utilizing the lug holes, instead of using a centering cone. This offers precision that is unparalleled.
A strong majority of auto shops don’t need all those bells and whistles. Many shops just cannot justify the expense. It would take a lot of balanced wheels to pay for an expensive machine.For them, A good, basic, dynamic wheel balancer is all they need.
We recommend a machine like our DST2420 Ranger Wheel Balancer. It is a reliable, accurate machine that can offer years of great service.
