The Little Dot on tire
- Thread starter Lubener
- Start date
Sometimes there's a red and a yellow, forget which one is which. One is the lightest spot of the tire (to be lined up with the valve stem). And one is the high point on the tire.
A good tire installer will spin a bare wheel to check for run-out and mark the high or low spots. If a tire has match mounting dots, the tire should be mounted accordingly. If not, the installer can use Road Force to check the amount force a wheel/tire assembly exerts on the road at the highest radial deviation. They will make their own marks and move the tire around until the least amount of force is achieved. Takes time and skill, but will produce the smoothest rolling, least wearing wheel/tire assembly.
I thought by now that tires would have very little variation or high spots in manufacturing to the point of almost being 100 percent balanced.
Our ability to measure uniformity and imbalance far exceeds our ability to manufacture uniform and balanced tires. A great amount of improvement has been made, but the manufacturing of tires is so complex, there are a lot of opportunities for non-uniformity and imbalance to enter.
And one other comment: There is no consistency between tire manufacturers as to what the dots mean - or even if the dots are there or not!
Further, wheel manufacturers don't routinely mark their wheels. The OEM's do specify the wheels and tires have to be marked for uniformity, but each OEM requires different marks and wheels are typically marked with a removeable sticker.
Correct!
On some new vehicles you can see what has been done. There will be a small circular red sticker on the wheel and the corresponding red dot on the tire will be lined up.
I mounted the new nexen tires on my 65 VW bug. Lined the yellow dot up with the valve stem when I mounted them. They have no added weights on them and none are needed All is smooth at 75 mph. By the way I mounted all my tires with the wheels still on the car. Original wheels have enough drop in the center to allow easy removal.
Nah. We've had several threads about expensive new tires being out-of-round and impossible to balance. This seemed to be a big problem during the pandemic.
