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Saying technology has changed over the last decade might be one of the greatest understatements that I’ve ever made. In 2005, tire pressure monitoring systems

Modern balancing equipment takes precise measurements of the tire/wheel assembly after it has been mounted on the balancer. In this instance, the measurements are down to the millimeter and 10th of an inch.

When an SUV tire and wheel assembly was mounted on balancer using the front cup and back cone system, the machine detected considerable lateral and radial rim runout.

When the same assembly was mounted on the balancer using the back cone and the pin plate, the machine detected minimal lateral and radial rim runout.

(TPMS) were primarily reserved for high-end luxury and sports cars. Anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and electronic stability control (ESC) were options. And people who thought the Blackberry was a smartphone were surprised when the frst video was uploaded to a new video hosting service called YouTube. Consumer expectations also have changed over the last 10 years. To most people, Yelp was something you did when you pinched your fnger and the Internet was used for research and not for online reviews. If a customer had a problem with a retailer, he might complain about it to his friends or fle an offcial complaint with the Better Business Bureau, but that was the extent of it. Today’s consumer is a highly connected smartphone addict who has, at his fngertips, someone else’s bad experience for every business documented for eternity. There is little room for mistakes in 2015. The tire industry is just like every other retail business in the sense that customer expectations are too often borderline unrealistic. Many of them still remember the days when tire companies advertised new tire prices that started at $19.99. Of course, that was for a P155/80R13, which only ft a handful of the cars at the time, but the perception was enough for consumers to believe that inexpensive tires were available. According to data published by Modern Tire Dealer, the total number of replacement passenger tires shipped in 2005 was 205.8 million. Last year, that number was 206.6 million. However, in 2005, the total performance tire market was about 43 million tires; last year, it was just over 70 million. In other words, while the total number of replacement tires hasn’t changed much over the last decade, the percentage of high performance and ultra-high performance tires has increased dramatically. This explains why more and more people are driving “regular” cars with performance tires. For consumers, this means the days of low cost replacement tires are rapidly coming to a close. The average overall price of a passenger tire has surpassed the $100 mark. For that kind of money, motorists expect a lot more, and they are less likely to overlook something like a vibration. Once they accept that performance tires are their best option, the hard work begins. Again, expectations are raised because they are anticipating a replacement tire that will perform at the same level as the original equipment ftment. The tire can’t do it alone.

Balancing act From the balance perspective, it starts with the mounting process. The frst step is to thoroughly clean the bead seat areas of the rim with a wire brush. Dirt, corrosion and foreign material trapped between the beads and the rim will not allow the tire to concentrically seat on the rim. Non-concentrically seated beads are an automatic source of imbalance that cannot be overcome by even the most technologically advanced balancing machines. I’m a big fan of paste-type bead lubricants because they seem to do the best job of allowing the beads to seat evenly while providing the best anti-corrosive properties down the road.

Another technique that has proven to be effective for concentrically seating the beads is to infate the tire to the maximum pressure listed on the sidewall before completely defating it. This gives the beads a chance to seat against the rim fanges and then relax before infating the tire a second time to the recommended infation pressure listed on the vehicle tire placard. It takes a little extra time, but studies have shown that this practice does improve