Well, I recently upgraded wheels and tires and thought this would be kind of cool if it actually worked. So I thought I would try it just to see. I didn't want to pay to go the the "expensive" route by buying the actual product from this site: http://www.innovativebalancing.com/ I had seen lots of posts about being able to use airsoft pellets and they worked the same way. So I went to their web site and looked at the tire size tables to see how much weight I would need per tire. No problem. Then I went to Wally World and bought some airsoft pellets and carefully measured out the correct amount for each tire and put them into individual ziplock bags.

Time to do some explaining here. I had read that the weights they suggested were the "minimum" weight to be added per tire. The supposed beauty of this technique and the dynamics of the beads would allow you to add more beads than needed "just in case" and it would all balance out anyway. So like all good engineers think, myself included, I decided, "if 4-5 oz is recommended, 6-7 oz should be really good". More is better - Right?

Well, the tire shop gladly put the beads in my tires when I had them mounted on the new rims. Just for kicks, they put one on the balancing machine to see what it said. As I expected, the balancing machine showed it to be out of balance a LOT. But I was not worried. I had also read that it takes up to 25-30 MPH for the beads to balance out. Below that it really doesn't matter. OK. No problem. Put the tires on and went for a test drive.

All was good up to about 45 MPH. Then the steering wheel started to shake a little. Not much. Just enough to notice. Then after a minute or two holding steady at 45 MPH, the shake went away and it all smoothed out. So I tried it for a couple of days. I saw the same pattern over and over. It was fine at low speed, but would vibrate for 1-2 minutes at 45 MPH or higher and then smooth out. I also noticed that it would vibrate and then smooth out if I hit a sizable bump in the road or went around a moderate corner at speed. Then it would always smooth out.

I think about it for a while and decide maybe it is taking so long to balance because I put too much weight in them. So my son I spend a few hours on one Saturday breaking the beads on all tires, vacuuming all of the beads out of the tires with my 1 gallon shop vac with a make-shift hose made from rubber fuel line to fit between the rim and bead, reweighing out exactly 4 oz per tire, and remounting them all.

I go for another test ride and it is better. I said better, not perfect. Now it basically acts the same way in all situations, but just with less vibration, and it only takes 30-45 seconds to smooth out. I tried this for a couple more days and decided it was not for me. I took it back to the tire shop and they removed the pellets and did the good old fashioned balancing for me. They did at least use sticky weights on the inside of the rim instead of hammering them on the outside lip.

Things to take into account:

1. I tried this with 235/75R15 tires. Typically people use the beads to balance the larger mudders that traditionally have a hard time balancing or keeping balanced. However, the website above says the beads can be used in all tires including standard passenger cars and even motorcycles.
2. I used the airsoft pellets, not the small ceramic beads. The smaller ceramic beads may perform much better.

Moral of the story:
1. More is not always better.
2. In theory, the pellets work fine, but in practice I didn't want to deal with the unbalanced vibration at every acceleration, curve, or bump until it automatically re-balanced itself.

This is just my experience. Thought others might want to know. I really wanted this to work just because it seemed like a really cool idea. But oh well. Has anyone else had any real experience with these? Good? Bad? Other?

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2007 Light Khaki 4x2 Sport
- Debadged - LTT CAI with Amsoil Filter - JVC HD Radio - Infinity BassLink
- Iggee Seat Covers - Black Moabs - 265/75-16 Cooper Discoverer ATP - 4.10's
- DIY Franky sitting at 23.75" - Al's 4.5 UCAs - Trimmed F&R Bumpers
- Removed Rear Sway Bar - Removed Rear Vibration Damper
- 75k miles so far...

The only info I can share about this is what the tire shop guy told me when I asked him about these beads. His take is that they're for big tires only, like for transport trucks etc. He'd said they don't seem to work well for smaller diameter wheel sizes.