Where is the "low point dimple" on a wheel?

The_Josh_Bear

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I have some tires I bought online and installed myself, and I'm fighting a balancing issue. (I use beads to balance my tires, which usually work quite well.) The balance issue is clearly from an out-of-round tire, and I'm hoping to find a solution that works up to 75-80mph instead of trying to go through the hassle of returning tires just to get more and re-mount them. I'm close as it is, with little to no vibrations up to about 64mph. But I live on a 70mph freeway so that's not good enough.

I need to know where to find the low point dimple on a steel wheel for our trucks, since over and over I read online that the red dot is to be lined up to the low point dimple. But nobody ever takes a picture of what it looks like or where to find it.

They also say if it doesn't have a low point dimple then line it up with the valve stem but that's doing me no good as that's the way I lined it up to start with.

@IDIBRONCO mentioned in his tire changing post to make sure and line up the yellow dots to the valve stem for our rigs but since I've already measured my tire as being out of round I was going to try the red dot to low point first.

Thanks everyone,
Joshua
 

Booyah45828

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I've only ever seen them on MD/HD truck rims. It will look similar to a center punch mark, either in the rim lip(where a wheel weight sits) or inside the tire on the drop well.

In the rust belt, it's virtually impossible to find either after the rim is a few years old. IDK how western WA is, but if the rims aren't out of the package new, you might be SOL. And FWIW, not all rims have them.

What tires are you using? We used to have a tire truer/shaver that we'd use on a lot of your mud terrain type treads, but got rid of it due to lack of use. Some shops have/use a hunter road force balancer as it has the ability to measure the rim and wheel and then you dismount and clock the tire accordingly. They can do that for each rim and tire, and then match the worst rim to the worst tire and have them cancel each other out.

That kind of thing might take a person half a day to do though, so be sure to inform them you want it done right and are expecting to pay for it.
 

The_Josh_Bear

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Thanks for the info, I was kinda thinking I wouldn't have much going for me here.

The tires are Thunderer Ranger AT/R. Just got two of them to try them out, had to replace one of the 4 Thunderer Americus Rugged M/T that I found was out of round.
They were quite inexpensive at the time, but actually wear really well and besides the roundness issue are pretty darn good. So I took a shot at some less aggressive AT's from them with the two newer ones.

They aren't so inexpensive anymore, that's for sure. The two AT/R's cost as much as the 4 M/T's!

As for the road force balancer, I'm quite sure that kind of labor would cost more than a new set of tires, let alone just one replacement. Very cool technology though. The local Chevy dealer has a road force. (Not that I've ever been there! LOL)
The whole point is to save money! And be in control of my own stuff. Nothing like paying for someone to do a job and you have to go back cause they couldn't handle doing it right the first time.

I've done 5 full sets with balance beads plus these 2 AR/Rs. Beads work great until you get a tire out of round. Then it's a giant PITA and not worth all the effort to change yourself.
 

Booyah45828

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Yeah, honestly I wouldn't mess around with a set of thunderers. Don't get me wrong, I've installed several sets of their passenger car tires because of how cheap/inexpensive they are. But your bigger AT/MT tires are enough of a pain to balance right, I wouldn't handicap myself more by going with a cheap unit. Balance beads work great, but only if the tire is spinning faster then 40 mph or so, if it's so far out of balance that it shakes below 40, we've had to install conventional weights as well as the balance beads. They say you're not supposed to, but I've ran into no issue doing it. Those were all cheap lo-pro 19.5 tires. You're better tires seem to always balance and ride better. Cost doesn't always equal quality, but with tires it seems to follow that trend.

Tires have gone up 20+% across the board in the last year. More so with the overseas units, not just chinese, Michelin has containers of korean built units we're waiting on still at sea supposedly. We can't even get a carlisle skidsteer tire right now, and their trailer tires are becoming slim pickings too.
 

The_Josh_Bear

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For future buying sake, got recommendations for AT tire manufacturers?

Like you said price doesn't always mean quality, so having a little inside knowledge is always good.
 

TNBrett

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For future buying sake, got recommendations for AT tire manufacturers?

Like you said price doesn't always mean quality, so having a little inside knowledge is always good.
I buy all my tires at discount tire. I’ve been getting Corsa all terrain XL’s from them for years now. They aren’t available in every size, but have pretty good coverage in popular sizes. I’ve been reliably getting 50k miles out of them usually with only a couple of rotations. That’s pretty good in my opinion for fleet use. If I can’t get the Corsa’s in the size I want, I’m usually getting a Cooper, usually the Discoverer AT3 or ATP2. I put 60k on the last set of Coopers on my daily driver. I probably could have made it another 5-10, but I had a flat that was non repairable so I went ahead and did all 4.
 

IDIBRONCO

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I like my Yokohama G015's. I've only been running some since last June or July, but they seem to be good so far. I have good luck with them in the past.
 

Booyah45828

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For future buying sake, got recommendations for AT tire manufacturers?

Like you said price doesn't always mean quality, so having a little inside knowledge is always good.
Define AT? Some people think they need an all terrain, yet they never leave the pavement and will see snow very rarely. Those guys I'll spec anything name brand with a closed shoulder. A lot of times I'll recommend a Firestone Transforce AT, as they will fit that bill, yet are enough of an AT that the person will likely not have slip issues. Even the Destination AT is an alright tire for that as it's shoulder isn't too "open" compared to some.

For a farmer or tradesmen I'll recommend the Goodyear Duratracs. Those guys seem to be in and out of the mud a lot more then the average user. The duratrac is an open shoulder design and will require regular rotations, but they seem to last well over 75k miles and are excellent as a true all terrain. They're not cheap though, not by a longshot.

A cheaper options then all of the above would be any of the units from mastercraft. They typically don't last as long as the others, and will cup like h*ll on the front axle, but they'll balance out fine and, aside from the cupping, we have no real issues with them.

I have some customers that request General Grabber ATX, a few also request the BFG Rugged trails. I've got no complaints about either, just my supplier stocks more of the goodyears and firestones. I think they're actually part owned by those companies, which is why they stock more and sell them cheaper.

I really try to avoid selling anything from gtradial, laufenn, Ohtsu, fortune, thunderers, fuzions, etc. They just seem so cheaply made that we nearly always have to work extra on them to get them right, and they seem to constantly need rebalanced. Unless it's an old vehicle that needs to make it another year, I'd rather just have you put on something better and save us both the headaches.
 

snicklas

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Define AT? Some people think they need an all terrain, yet they never leave the pavement and will see snow very rarely. Those guys I'll spec anything name brand with a closed shoulder. A lot of times I'll recommend a Firestone Transforce AT, as they will fit that bill, yet are enough of an AT that the person will likely not have slip issues.

I really like the Transforce A/T’s. Both trucks are sitting them right now. I normally get 60-70+k out of a set. I’ve liked them well enough that I have bought 4 sets total….

I’ve not tried the new A/T-2 version…. Mine are the original design. I did have a set of the Destnation L/E-2 (I think that was the model) on a Infiniti SUV, they had good traction… but seemed to not last as long as I hoped…. But I think that may have had more to do with the vehicle, not the tire…. Keeping it in alignment is a challenge…. That is why I now have a SuperCrew…. LOL

I do agree with last paragraph above…. Buy a quality tire. When I bought the SuperCrew (see sig) it needed tires. The dealer put a set of Westlake A/T’s on it. They were like $500 for the set (their price). They were a nice looking tire, and did well in the snow last year (Indiana got the biggest snow we’ve had in a while last year). But at ~26,000 miles, they were shot…. Wearing funny…. Dad was taking the Transforce A/T’s off his 16 SuperCrew that had about 35,000 on them (going to a lower load range tire, as his truck is his “car”). I’ve put about 15k on them and see no difference than when we put them on. The Westlakes would have shown wear in that amount of miles…. I just think the tire was not suited for the weight of a full size pickup…. It may have met the specs and been a load range D tire….. but would have been better suited on a small SUV that has 18’s…. Not a 6000ish pound pickup……
 

IDIBRONCO

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I really try to avoid selling anything from gtradial, laufenn, Ohtsu, fortune, thunderers, fuzions, etc. They just seem so cheaply made that we nearly always have to work extra on them to get them right, and they seem to constantly need rebalanced. Unless it's an old vehicle that needs to make it another year, I'd rather just have you put on something better and save us both the headaches.

I do agree with last paragraph above…. Buy a quality tire.
I have to second both of these. Cheap tires just aren't worth it, just like used tires aren't worth it either. The only exception to this personal rule is if I lived in a smaller city, never drove out of town, and the speed was 40-45. Then I'd buy the cheapest, crappy tires and run them until they rotted off. At highway speeds, I don't like to take chances anymore.
 

eacars

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I've only ever seen them on MD/HD truck rims. It will look similar to a center punch mark, either in the rim lip(where a wheel weight sits) or inside the tire on the drop well.

In the rust belt, it's virtually impossible to find either after the rim is a few years old. IDK how western WA is, but if the rims aren't out of the package new, you might be SOL. And FWIW, not all rims have them.

What tires are you using? We used to have a tire truer/shaver that we'd use on a lot of your mud terrain type treads, but got rid of it due to lack of use. Some shops have/use a hunter road force balancer as it has the ability to measure the rim and wheel and then you dismount and clock the tire accordingly. They can do that for each rim and tire, and then match the worst rim to the worst tire and have them cancel each other out.

That kind of thing might take a person half a day to do though, so be sure to inform them you want it done right and are expecting to pay for it.
In the 70's, I worked at an American station and we had a tire shaver . My boss would do it but I don't remember any results. Driving with an out of balance tire could wear a shock absorber out quick...How old are your shocks?
 

The_Josh_Bear

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In the 70's, I worked at an American station and we had a tire shaver . My boss would do it but I don't remember any results. Driving with an out of balance tire could wear a shock absorber out quick...How old are your shocks?
I don't drive it a lot right now between having a commuter car and not wanting to rattle myself or the pickup apart.
But that said the shocks are getting up there-- I want to say over 10 years. I have Bilstein HD's all around and love them.
 

Scotty4

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My Corsas have probably 20k on them currently. I rotate them regularly and haven't had bad wear. The only issue I have seen is they like to sit low in the front. I have 50psi front and 70 rear and they look a bit squishy. No complaints otherwise!
 

Farmer Rock

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Out of all the truck tires I have tried on different pickups, I am very pleased with Goodyear wrangler kevlar A/Ts. They wear even and really surprise me driving around in bad conditions with no weight in the bed. I pull trailers around off-road as well, up some pretty steep hills, and they do really well. Of course they come with a price, but are well worth it IMHO.


Rock
 

IDIBRONCO

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My Corsas have probably 20k on them currently. I rotate them regularly and haven't had bad wear. The only issue I have seen is they like to sit low in the front. I have 50psi front and 70 rear and they look a bit squishy. No complaints otherwise!
My truck says something like that too, but I ignore it. I usually run 75-80 in the front tires and 60-65 in the rears. The back of the truck seems to ride a little bit better that way.
 

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