I\'m buying a new set of tires. Should I have them balanced?

Yes. Balancing helps to guarantee a smooth ride at highway speeds, and it helps to maximize tire life. An out-of-balance tire can be very annoying because it produces a shake that increases in intensity the faster you go. The up-and-down shaking of the wheel is hard on the suspension, not to mention your nerves, and also increases tread wear. An out-of-balance tire can develop a cupped wear pattern. So do yourself and your tires a favor and have them balanced.

Almost all service facilities and tire stores today use an off-car electronic spin balancer to balance the wheels. The tire and wheel are mounted on the balancer, then spun to find any heavy spots on the wheel. The balancer then indicates where weights (and how much weight) need to be placed to counterbalance the heavy spot.

Off-car spin balancers actually check two kinds of balance, "static" and "dynamic." Static imbalance causes a wheel to shake up and down as it spins, so static balance is achieved when both halves of the tire wheel assembly weigh exactly the same. Dynamic imbalance causes a tire and wheel to shake back and forth or sideways as it spins. Dynamic balance is achieved when the front and back sides of the wheel and tire weigh the same.