Should tires be re-balanced when rotating?

This is actually a 2-fold question regarding my '21 at its 40K mile service appointment:
1. Should the tires be re-balanced when rotating? If so, how frequently?

2. Was my dealer trying to rip me off? Between PUSHING the wheel balance and DISCOURAGING me from changing the oil (telling me that I could "go another 5,000 miles"), I got the feeling that something wasn't right.

I like to use the dealership when possible. It helped get an out of warranty repair covered on a Rav-4. I never re-balanced before on any vehicle though.

I told him to only change the oil and rotate the tires -just like I asked for -and not to balance the wheels. Drove a 300 mile ski trip since then and there were no vibrations at any speed up to 84 mph.

 

I usually have them rebalanced every 25-30k
They do not need balanced every 5k rotation

 

Balancing during a rotation isn't a bad thing, it just checks to make sure the tires are in balance. They aren't going to remove the weights and rebalance, all they do is put them on the balancer to make sure you are good.
I don't know about your Tacoma, mine is a 98, but my Honda tells me what maintenance is due, for everything, and that's based on mileage, temperatures, how hard I drive it, etc. I assume your truck has something similar. It's not going to hurt anything by changing your oil early, but you can certainly hurt the engine by changing it late, so I don't agree with the dealership there.

 

In my experience, rebalancing tires that exhibit no balancing issues doesn’t do anything but add potential to screw up their balance.

A bit anecdotal and probably doesn’t happen to many, but when I got my Jeep 10 years ago I put new tires on it (Duratracs). They were perfect, balanced only with stick on weights. Got them at a tire shop in Kansas where I got the Jeep. Time came to rotate them and I figured I needed to take them in for R&B. I paid discount to do it because I lived in Texas. Must have been a bad discount location because for the “Balancing” part, they immediately ripped off all the stick-ons and rebalanced them with crappy clip on weights. I could never get them balanced again and they essentially ruined my tires. i also paid for road force balancing and went back multiple times until I gave up.

At this point I just rotate them. I have yet to get so far into a tire’s life that it needs rebalancing on its own. But if you take them to the dealer or a tire shop, there is a strong chance they’re going to try and rebalance them.

If all they do is throw them on the machine to check balance briefly, that’s fine.

 

I would consider rebalancing when it became apparent the tires are no longer in balance, it's not like you can't feel it when that occurs. There's no downside to having it done as they recommend except that it's kind of expensive. It's not a requirement by any means.

 

Typically I've always rotated myself in the driveway.

But since getting tires at Costco a few years ago, I let them do it. For free. They re-balance as well.

 

I've been driving for 46 years, never rebalanced tires on any vehicle I've owned. My experience is make sure you rotate the tires every 5k miles, and make sure your front end alignment is correct. By doing this every set of tires I've bought has at least lasted as long as the mileage claim by the manufacturer.

 

You guys have to understand it depends on the customer base. We have a few dealers that enforce this.

We get loads of complaints "Ever since you rotated my tires there's a shake"

Sorry we don't test drive at 60mph and what do you want us to do after, bring it in to undo the rotation or sell a rebalance? People don't understanding of the process.

With all terrains I do diagonal rotations and warn it may vibrate a bit, but truck owners should always be prepared for this with heavier tires.


Same with winter tire swaps, winters trap rocks intentionally and lose balance. So customer books a 40$ swap, gets a vibration and we have to waste shop time by bringing it in for a free balance.

Can't win.

 

If it ain't broken....

Definitely not worth doing it every rotation. You will know if it drives bad, or if they start to show uneven wear.


As far oil changes go.... I wouldn't go over 10k, and not more than 1 year on the same oil, regardless of mileage.

 

Simple answer: No. They’re draining your wallet. On rare occasions we might get a complaint after a rotation but not the norm. Usually if you see fresh curb rash on a wheel you might want to recommend a balance but my experience is you can take a tire that does not exhibit vibration, put it on the balancer and it’s off a half ounce or so. Balance it, take it off then reinstall it on the balance and it wants another half ounce 180 degrees from where you just added it. Take off the half ounce you just installed and it spins up all zeros. Sometimes it can drive you nuts.

 

It's a good idea but not compulsory. When I had access to a wheel balancer i'd usually check them when I rotated them but, anything 0.25 Oz or less out of balance and I would just leave them be.

for me though it depends on the vehicle, when it was last done, the condition of the tires, condition of the wheel hub, customer, etc whether I recommend a balance with a rotation. Usually it's based on tire condition and wheel hub condition for me though whether I try to upsell it or not.

My shop was a stickler for cleaning wheel hubs when ever the wheels came off if there was any corrosion at all. So if I had to hammer/pry the wheel off, or the tires had abnormal wear then usually I would recommend a wheel balance

 

As tires wear they get lighter and in my findings, they are off balance after 10k miles; GY MTR, Toyo Open County ATII and ATIII, and Toyo Observe, BFG K02 have all needed to be rebalanced. I rotate my tires from 2-5k depending on the vehicle and conditions.
The MTR and K02 are the tires on mine that benefit from rebalancing sooner than later.

 

Don’t waste your money, you only need to rebalance with each rotation if your wheels were road force balanced (while mounted on the vehicle). But nobody does that anymore so don’t worry about it and just do it if you get a new TPMS unit or a patch and they removed the tire to do it or if you feel a new vibration (like from having a weight fall off a wheel which is rare with newer stick-on weights- I’ve never had one of those fall off over a decade of driving work trucks and my own truck off-road).

 

I'm getting my 40K service later this month. I assume the tires were rotated every 5K per the service manual when I took it to the dealership but who knows? I've never had an issue with vibration after the rotations.

 

I think it’s personal preference. However, I think if you spend a majority of your time off-road like I have since April, get it done when you have them rotated. Not hard to lose a wheel weight in some shite and not know it until a vibration starts. Or something else.

I’m sure there’s someone out there that keeps track of where every single wheel weight is on every wheel, knows the weight of each one and checks each one after every wash. That’s not me.

 

Yes, if they want to do it for free otherwise no.

 

It doesn't hurt anything (other then your wallet) to balance the tires every 5000 miles but I wouldn't bother, if you do lots of interstate driving it may be nice to balance them every 20,000 miles. Different for me since I am a mechanic I can balance them for free whenever, I usually balance my tires once a year before the road trip vacation so I don't get vibrations when breaking the speed limit for hours.

 

I was in the tire biz for several years. To me rebalancing is a cash grab and a gimmick. If they're balanced/ not balanced that's the way they they are. Rotation or not.