OT what do you think of this wheel balancer

I'm not sure if I'm feeding a troll.

Why not save your $600 and take advantage of the price included/free wheel balancing when you get your new tyres fitted.

Spending $600 on a wheel balancer when you only maintain 3 cars seems more than a little out of whack.......

stryped wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

THINK about it for just a minute, stryped. I know that may be something of a foreign concept for you, but try it, just this once.

How much does a tire shop charge to balance a wheel? Ten bucks? I heard Walmart does it for eight.

And how often do you need wheels balanced? Once every 2-3 years? If you're maintaining three cars, that means on average four wheels per year, at $10 each. That's $40 per year, tops.

Divided into the $600 you're going to spend on the balancer, plus probably another $50 in weights, means it will take you AT LEAST SIXTEEN YEARS to recover the cost.

Sounds like a stupid idea to me.

Or a stryped idea.

Not that there seems to be a lot of difference...

I just like the idea of being able to mail order tires and change them myself. I already have a manual tire changer.

And I think I could do it better than anyone else. No body seems to even pay attention to the balancing marks on new tires. My wife's car has huge weights on it because of it....

And I don't think I want Wal Mart doing anything on my vehicle. At least the one around here...

I'd buy four jackstands so I could pull all the wheels to make one trip, and ask around for a better tire shop.

I've found that the shop's attitude follows the customer's attitude and willingness to listen.

-jsw

Weaver used to be pretty good equipment - for a home balancer that would be the cat's meow!!!!

stryped wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Suit yourself. The math says it's a foolish decision. If you don't mind waiting until your kids are grown before you even begin to recover the cost, it's your money you're wasting, not mine. But as we see below ...

... as always, you'll do what you've already decided to do anyhow, regardless of the advice you receive. Makes me wonder why you ask.

Probably a good unit, but I've been able to pick up comparable balances for well under $300. Always a tire shop closing up somewhere.

I bought a tire machine and balance when I was actively racing. saved me some money, but mostly it saved me time and travel to and from the store. When the tire shops went to $70 a set (with me bringing them in) it made it worthwhile.

FWIW, I sold my last computer balancer and kept a bubble balancer. For my infrequent use it works just fine. Still have an old rim-clamp Coats changer though.

Makes me wonder why you answer questions that haven't been asked.

The OP asked what people thought of that specific wheel balancer. He did ask for your opinion: if he should buy a wheel balancer or not.

Bill wrote in news:0ZSdnWl88-y- ITnOnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

advice

What question would that be?

And I told him what I thought of that specific wheel balancer: that, because it would take sixteen years to recover the cost, it was a foolish idea.

And I gave him my opinion.

You might spend a bit of time researching stryped's posting history, which is replete with ill- advised ideas -- not just in this newsgroup, but in alt.home.repair as well -- before forming an opinion of my responses to him. [I've been positively gentle, compared to some folks here.] Stryped has a long history of asking for advice and then ignoring it.

Sorry, there was an obvious typo.

The OP did _not_ seek the opinion you offered; and you were snarky about it.

His posting history, your viewpoint concerning his decision makng skills, tec., are red herrings.

You've obviously never dealt with Stryped before .

Why does anyone NOT have him in their twit filters yet?

I've just added him.