Dave M

I got yet another nail in a tire, and rather than patch it I think I'm going to just replace all the tires. They are the original 3 year old Continentals but are not quite to the treadwear indicators yet. They seem to be picking up more and more junk now that they are old and worn, and they are also staring to get noisy and are starting to hydroplane more. I would like a step up from these, but I don't need something super high performance. My main concerns are great wet weather performance, quiet/smooth ride and reasonable cost ($100 or so). I just chipped my car and I want to stay with the stock 205/55-R16 size, if that matters. I live in Dallas, so snow is not a major concern.

- I think I'm set on the Dunlop 5000s, but I have been reading a lot about the new Bridgestone RE 730s. Their directional tread seems to make more sense in the wet over the asymetrical tread of the 5000, but I'm not sure. I have read that the 730s might have a slight hum to them, is this true? Any thoughts on which would better fit my above criteria? Any other tires I have overlooked?

- Wheel balancing - I think I want them to balance the tires with no weights on the outside of the rim. Any tradeoffs in doing this?

- Wheel balancing - A local shop has one of the Hunter GPS 9000 or whatever balancing machines that are supposed to be great. Should I make it a point to have this shop do the work even though it is a longer drive for me? Any real advantage of using this machine over any other?

Thanks for your input!

Dave M - '97 1.8tm, sport, sunroof, APR

Adam S

And they do "hum" just a bit, but they do have great dry/wet weather performance! It's a great tire and I have them on my Avant but if you want "quiet" and don't want to spend too much $$$, then I think the SP5000 is the way to go. As far as balancing goes, it's more important to get someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to balancing. Case in point:

I made three trips back to my installer to get the wheels balanced correctly. The guys doing the balancing had the super-new-fangled-whiz-bang-balancing-machine. Ok, well, they didn't know how to use it! The manager of the shop had to show them how to set it to the "finest" setting.

Some advice I received which worked well. When they do the wheel balancing, ask them to set the machine to the "finest setting" allowed. Also, no more than 1 ounce of weight per wheel and ask them to balance on inside and outside of rim - in my case, it wasn't outside the face of the rim, but just inside and all the way across to the inside part of the rim (make sense?).

You would think that balancing is easy, but if you get a moron who isn't careful, you will get vibration as I did.<p><a href="http://www.dnai.com/~adamant/a4_avant.htm"><img src="http://www.dnai.com/~adamant/adamsavant1.jpg"></a>

Dave M

When you talk about inside/outside balance, I assume you are talking about adding the stick-on weights just inside but as close as possible to the wheel spokes (no weights on the outside edge of the rim)? Like I see on wheels that do not have the outer lips (like on the BMW 540 sport, etc.), right?

I agree about the tire balancing, and thanks for the tips. I have heard that if a tire is requiring a lot of weights, the tire should be turned 1/4 turn on the rim, balanced again, and so on, until the weight required is minimized. I have never seen anyone actually do this, and maybe by specifying no more than 1 oz. per wheel they will have to do this if a tire is that bad. The new-fangled Hunter machine is supposed to detect all this kind of stuff and give a factory-tuned balance (I believe Audi uses these exact machines). It can't hurt too much to have the new-fangled machine do the job, I guess, and several Audiworld members have taken their cars to this same shop and recommend it, too. Hopefully the person they mentioned that took care of them still works there.

Adam S

<p><a href="http://www.dnai.com/~adamant/a4_avant.htm"><img src="http://www.dnai.com/~adamant/adamsavant1.jpg"></a>

Pelican Pete

I generally try to have the guy put the weights only on the inside of the rim, and they seem to balance out okay.

If you do need to put weights on the outside of your rim, make sure they are stick-on weights.
And make sure that you do not wax your wheels !

I had my summer wheels balanced in March, when I took off my snows. But I had waxed the wheels, so the stick-on weights would not stay.

-- Peter

Bob Petruska

Ask the people with the Hunter if they also have the pressure roller attachment....if so, go for it! It will balance your tires better than anything else on earth.

Read about it at hunter.com