I just had my tires removed and all the equal cleaned out and I'm running smooth again.

History: I was having a little steering wheel shake and decided to try some Equal tire balancer in my tires 33x12.50 BFG mud-T. It was put in through the valve stems, 6 oz per tire.
After installing the equal the shaking actually was worse at speeds around 45-50 mph but would smooth out at higher speeds. The shaking at 45mph finally drove me nuts and I had the tires demounted and I took a shop vac and cleaned all that powder crap out and had them rebalanced the normal way, with lead weights. I'm running smooth again at all speeds and happy, but a little lighter wallet now . Thought, some might be saved from the expense. Live and learn.

 

Thanks for the update!

 

Glad someone did an update about that. Thanks!

 

disclamer: i have never used equal or any other type of dynamic balancer, so i'm only speaking on theory, not experience

i think it's great that mt_goat mentioned this, because it brings to light what equal is good for and what it's not good for. if the symptoms are a tire out of balance radially, then equal will work great. when you have a heavy spot on the tire, then assuming equal torque is being applied during the entire rotation (a good assumption, the wheels spin fast enough that the torque can be approximated as equal throughout the entire rotation). the wheel will spin a little faster when the heavy spot is on the ground and a little slower then the heavy spot is opposite the ground. this slight change in angular velocity is enough to cause the equal to spread out and fill in the areas where the wheel is lighter. this causes the wheel to balance and spin at the same rate at all times.

however, the mt_goat's symptoms are that the steering wheel was shaking. that is likely due to the wheel being out of balance laterally. equal is only able to fix radial balance problems. it's interesting that equal caused the problem to be worse, i wouldn't have expected that. maybe dynamically fixing the radial balance problems made the lateral problems worse.

contrary to what the equal website says, i think it's a good idea to get your tires balanced as good as you can at the tire shop, this will fix radial and lateral balance issues. and then add some equal to fix any dynamic issues that show up when you're driving.

 

I think that's exactly what happened. It kind of diluted the lateral balance job I had done originally on these wheels.

I think you are also right-on in saying the Equal will only fix the radial balance problem because it is forced (by the concave shape of the inside of the tire) to stay in the center plane of the wheel. It would be like a tire jockey trying to do what they call a “dynamic balance” job by only putting weights on the center plane on your rim, instead of the inside and outside of the rim. It just can't be done. These 33x12.50 size tires require a lot more lateral balancing than a skinny tire would. If you were just balancing a skinny bicycle tire you wouldn’t need any lateral balancing at all, but the wider the tire is the more important it becomes. I have also noticed that my wife’s BMW which has small but very wide tires does much better with the “dynamic balance”, but for some reason a lot of tire jockeys will only do a “static balance” unless you ask them for a “dynamic balance”.

 

I just thought of something, Equal is mostly sold to long haul truckers, right? Is the inside of a tire on an 18 wheeler concave like my radial tires are or is it more flat? If it is flat, that would allow the Equal to also balance laterally as well as radially.

 

Do you think adding more Equal would have helped, maybe 6 oz was not enough for the heavier tires?

Thanks for the review, all the "real" reviews I've read have been mixed and I never did it because you need special valves and its more work to air down.

My only thought is if you threw a weight offroading, the equal would be better but maybe just save it for the "recovery kit" rather than install it right away...

 

6 oz is suppost to balance up to a 35x12.50 tire. Plus my tires were not very far off balance because all the lead weights were left on and I just had a slight shaking of the steering wheel before the Equal was added.

I couldn't even use those special valves because I have the short valve stems, so that was another problem I had. They said I needed to give the valve a blast of air after checking the air pressure or else the powder would remain on the seal of the valve and cause a slow leak.

I may carry some of the stuff with me on a long wheeling trip for emergency balancing. If I was 500 miles from home and throw a weight or spin the tire on the rim it would be easy to funnel some through the valve stem to get home. It would surely be better than no balance at all. Plus I've still got a pound and a half of the stuff so might as well carry some. Once home I'd have the tire unmounted and remove it though. For that purpose thought, one could add a lot of things to do the balancing in an emergency, like sand or water (as long as it's not freezing temps), even beer if that was all you had.

 

We tried it in RV tires and abandoned it. Two issues - one is moisture turns the stuff to crud and it won't work anymore - made the balance WORSE! Tires always get some moisture in eventually. (Especially on 4x4s where we adjust the pressure a lot.) The other is it gets into the valve cores and they won't seal. We had buttloads of flats with it. Bad deal all around.

 

it may be flatter because the tread part of the tire is much thicker (they can be regrooved, our tires can't). but i think the key is that truck tires are just so much bigger that at the same ground speed they rotate much slower and balance issues probably aren't as bad. plus if you have dual wheels or big heavy steering dampers like i'm sure they have, any lateral wobbling is probably damped out by other means.

 

Good points, plus the height-to-width ratio on those big truck tires makes them relatively narrow, therefore less need for lateral balancing.


Mike, you are a smart one, are you working on your PHD or Masters?

 

that's true, didn't even think of that.
PhD. only about 1 year to go...assuming that my advisor lets me graduate

 

I'm sure he'll let you. BTW what is a gmail?

 

I don't think you can assume a radial balance problem won't cause a shakey steering wheel. First lets define the terms to make sure we're on the same page.

Radial balance: A heavy spot on the centerline of the tire.
Lateral balance: ??? A heavy spot not on the centerline of the tire?

A radial imbalance can induce a shakey steering wheel. Obviously in this radially imbalanced condition the force vector of the heavy spot is along the centerline of the tire. At some instant this vector is pointing toward the front of the vehicle and at another instant it is pointing toward the rear of the vehicle. This force is acting on the spindle creating a moment through the knuckle, about the axis of the two ball joints. This moment is countered by the steering linkages and thus, transfered to the steering wheel in a cyclic manner.

 

I went to post in the other equal thread only to find one of the funniest endings to a thread I have ever seen!
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/anyone-use-equal-their-tires-instead-lead-weights-53032/

Anyway, I have been down at the 2005 World Tire Expo and I spoke to the Presidents of both Equal and Counteract and I have to say I think that Equal seems to be more popular because it is the older product in the market, but that counteract has a better product for a few reasons.

1) Counteract doesn't clump nearly as bad as others do when wet and due to the shape of the particles and also dries more quickly (Counteract did a test against Equal and Magnum and Counteract provided the least resistance when wet....thus it is also most efficiently distributed even when wet).

You can see a comparison of what each looks like here:
http://www.counteractbalancing.com/compare.htm

2) The real secret to the advantage of counteract over Equal is that Counteract creates more static charge than Equal (you guessed it, again, composition and shape). He told me that they are not able to publish this because Equal sued them in the US and got a court order against them such that they are not allowed to use that fact as part of their marketing (but it is a property you can clearly see in the product displays) and can be fined for mentioning it to US citizens (he thought I was a Candadian so he told me ). What this does is to supposedly slow the shifting of the material and reduce the material from having to completely rebalance during acceleration (ie you may feel a momentary shake while it shifts inside as you get up to speed with Equal before it smooths out).

The counteract sales director said he would get me some free samples to try for my truck so I will report back after I see how well it does. He did say that "less is more" when balancing tires and you shouldn't need more than 3-4oz for even large passenger truck tires (that way you get maximum advantage from the static property and little excess material movement) and that should be fine for both on and offroad use. He said that they are working on a product for low profile tires, but he said you should use the "Counteract Balancing Beads - Truck Product" for SUV's, pickups, vans and tractor trailers with normal profile and oversize tires. He said retail it goes for about $13 a bag (comes with a special valve core and step cap too) so not too bad for a set of tires but said you can find it for less from dealers.

Funny part is that both claim to have never been taken up on the performance guarantee to refund the purchase price if you are unhappy with the product. They both also joked that you can use sand or gravel and it does work, but it will eventually wear through your tire and rim....definately ghetto and cheap tho.

If you guys have any more questions you want me to ask of them or anyone else at the show, let me know ASAP (I am here til Fri).

 

The Equal I had never got wet. I aired up with CO2 after the install and it was very dry when I removed it. Funny you mention static as a good thing, it was so full of static it was stuck all over the inside of the tire and I had to use a shop vac to get it all out. I was thinking the the static was a bad thing, but I don't know.

Yeah that other thread was a disaster. I didn't want to bring that back to life, I'm glad it was closed.

 

When I say wet, I just mean damp from condensation which can tend to clump the material and reduce its efficiency. If you use gasses other than regular air this may reduce that problem.

As far as static, I was told by Counteract that it was a good thing and the Equal guy didn't mention it at all. From an engineering standpoint I would think it was good because it may help in the instantaneous situation where your tire is rebalancing itself (such as accel or deccel). Other than that I am not sure of what benefit or detriment it might be.

Counteract claimed to be getting 5-9% more fuel mileage by using their product and as you can imagine I am dying to get a few sample bags and try them in my truck. I know for truck fleets they were even going to a system where if you didn't want to purchase the balancing material outright, they would take 10% of the first year's fuel savings instead (I wish they did that for SUVs too!).....I am sure they make out like bandits on that deal if they are correct.

How are you liking the Equal so far?

 

Just so people don't get confused....

Radial balance: A heavy spot, stiff portion of the tire or vertical runout problem acting parallel to the tire centerline (typically tire)
Lateral balance: Usually a sideways runout problem (rotor, tire, rim, etc) acting perpendicular to the centerline of the tire

The balancing beads (like Counterbalance and Equal) will only cure a radial balance problem as mt_goat mentioned since it uses centrifugal force to distribute the material and thus would have no way to create any sideways forces which result from lateral balance problems.

 

It didn't work very good for me and I took it out. I started a thread about it here: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/show...598#post588598

 

Guess I should have asked did you ever put any back in? (sorry, I haven't had my coffee yet....totally busted!)
....from your response I would guess the answer was no.

I'll give it a shot and just dump it out if I don't like it either.

BTW the big rig tires are just a little wider than a normal SUV tire (maybe 2-3 inches max) and a heck of alot taller (diameter-wise), not to mention they weigh about 4.5 times as much (typical passenger tire is about 20-25 lbs while truck tires are 80-100 lbs each) which may also affect how the tires balance and what dynamic balance problems occur. The rims are also much taller and can go up to 24.5 inches in diameter. The tires are not flat inside as you guys suggested but the radius is larger due to the larger width of the tire.

Also passenger tires can be retread just like truck tires can but are not done as often because the passenger retread industry got a bad rap due to a couple of retreaders doing poor quality work (and thus now it is heavily regulated but the US DOT) and many considered it not worth the risk to save on the cost (while if you own a fleet, any bit helps). In most cases now a retread can be as good and sometimes even better quality than a new tire (because the casing has already been thoroughly road tested). Most tires are designed to have the casings last 3-4 times as long as the tread will.