Bubble Balancer

This is done by turning the wheel on its side, and placing the center hole over the properly shaped attachment on the balancing tool. 

The wheel will then balance by itself on the bubble wheel balancer, but the way the real balance is determined is with a small, circular shaped bubble level in the middle of the tool attachment. The bubble is located right on top where it is easy to see, and this makes it very easy for the technician to balance the tire.

The bubble will indicate which parts of the tire are off balance, and the technician will then apply small weights to the area of the tire where weight is needed. These small weights are usually clipped to the outside of the rim, and consist of a metal that will add weight on the tire and help it to balance out. These weights used to be lead, but nowadays the world is trying to move away from lead-based weights, and the weights you get on your car will likely be made of some safer material.

A bubble wheel balancer is a very useful tool for any mechanic who does a lot of work on wheels, or for anyone who takes tires off of their rims and attaches new rims. Once you put a tire on a rim that it was not originally on, you need to balance the wheel.

Usually, rims will keep their balance, but not always, and because wheels that are not balanced will cause themselves damage, it is not a step that you can afford to skip....especially when considering the fact that tires are not cheap nowadays!

The above video provides a walk-through of changing and balancing a tire.

The above video presents the No-Mar wheel balancer for motorcycle wheel balancing.

A bubble balancer can be bought online from a large number of automotive tool dealers, and they are a very worthwhile addition to any garage. Price is going to be a very big consideration here, as you are going to have a lot of options at various price ranges. You can pick up a pretty inexpensive, simple, manual bubble balancer for a small amount of cash, or you can go all out and get an automatic balancer that is powered and automated.

Which balancer you buy pretty much depends on what you are going to do with it. If you own a commercial garage, then you probably will want to spend a little bit more on a good one. If, however, you just want to use it once in awhile for your own cars, then you can afford to get a cheaper one. It is really up to you on which type of bubble balancer to get!