Most car owners are familiar with the fact that they need to do wheel alignment on their vehicles every so often. It’s very important for them to schedule alignment services about once every two to three years. But what they don’t always realize is that it’s just as important to do tire balancing on a regular basis. You could run into all kinds of problems if you don’t take the time to add tire balancing to your to-do list. The tire balancing cost is usually minimal, but it’ll go a long way towards keeping your car safe. Check out everything you need to know about tire balancing and the tire balancing cost below.
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What Is Tire Balancing?
When a new set of tires is put onto a car for the very first time, there are three metal attachments strategically positioned on each of them to keep them balanced. These attachments are designed to distribute weight evenly on the tires. But over time, they can become unbalanced and cause lots of complications with your car. It’s why you need to go through the process of tire balancing.
During tire balancing, your car’s tires will be hooked up to a special balancing machine that will reveal whether or not they’re balanced. If they’re not, it’s typically because one of the attachments has either shifted on your tire or fallen off completely. To fix this problem, the weights will have to be moved around or replaced to get your tires back into balance. It’s a simple procedure with a low tire balancing cost, but it’s one that is overlooked far too often by car owners.
Why Is Tire Balancing Important?
The tires on a car aren’t going to stay balanced forever. It’s very important for car owners to arrange to have tire balancing done to ensure that they don’t stay unbalanced for very long for safety reasons. They’re not going to rotate evenly when this is the case, and it could put you into a dangerous position when you’re driving your car around out in the world.
It's also very important for car owners to do tire balancing and pay the tire balancing cost associated with doing it every so often to make sure tires last as long as they’re supposed to. If you don’t pay the relatively small fee to have tire balancing done, it could lead to you having to pay hundreds of dollars to have your car’s tires replaced sooner than expected. That alone makes tire balancing one of the most important car maintenance jobs that you’ll have to take on.
How Often Should You Do Tire Balancing?
Now that you have a better idea of what tire balancing is and know why it’s such an important maintenance step, let’s get into talking about how often you need to have it done. It’s not necessarily a job that will need to be performed every few months, which is why it often falls off people’s radars and gets overlooked at times. Even though the tire balancing cost is low, people sometimes just forget to balance their tires as frequently as they should.
You should consult with the manufacturer of your car’s tires when trying to figure out how often that you need to have tire balancing done. They’ll typically provide you with a recommendation as far as when you’ll need to arrange to have your tires balanced. But generally speaking, most of them say that you should do tire balancing about once every 3,000 to 6,000 miles. Those are good numbers to keep in the back of your mind when you’re considering how often to schedule tire balancing.
How Do You Know If You Need to Have Tire Balancing Performed?
As long as you plan to have tire balancing performed every 3,000 to 6,000 miles, you shouldn’t run into too many instances in which you need to take your car for an emergency appointment for tire balancing. However, they are some signs that will let you know that you need to have tire balancing done as soon as possible. It’s essential for car owners to keep a close eye out for these signs at all times so that they don’t need to drive around on imbalanced tires.
So, what are the signs that you’re going to have to pay the tire balancing cost at some point in the near future? Check them out below and make sure you don’t ignore them the next time you see, hear, or feel them:
- The treads on your tires seem to be wearing out very quickly
- The treads on your tires are wearing out unevenly
- The floorboards under your car vibrate when you’re driving your car over 50 miles per hour
- Your driver’s seat starts to shake when you’re out on the open highway
- Your car feels like it’s burning through fuel way quicker than it normally does
If you’ve noticed any of these things, you shouldn’t wait until you hit the 6,000-mile mark to have tire balancing done. You should prepare to pay the tire balancing cost sooner than later so that you aren’t driving around on tires that are unbalanced for very long.
What Might Happen If You Don’t Schedule Tire Balancing?
There are some car owners who will, unfortunately, pay no mind when they see, hear, and feel things that suggest there might be a problem with their car. Even if it appears as though there is something wrong without a shadow of a doubt, they’ll ignore the obvious signs that are right there in front of them until they don’t have a choice but to address whatever issue they’re having. If you choose to do this with tire balancing issues, you’re going to be asking for trouble.
There are lots of things that might happen if you continue to drive around on imbalanced tires day after day after day. For starters, you’ll often have to pay to have your tires replaced at some point rather than just paying the tire balancing cost. You’ll also have to pay extra to put gas in your car every week since yours will be blowing through it at a rapid pace. And on top of all that, you’ll consistently put yourself into positions where your safety and the safety of others could be at risk since you won’t always have complete control of your car when it starts vibrating due to imbalanced tires.
You don’t really want to have to deal with these kinds of problems, do you? Of course not, which is why you need to have tire balancing performed as often as necessary. The tire balancing cost is a small price to pay when you consider the alternatives.
How Much Does Tire Balancing Cost?
The typical set of tires can cost car owners a pretty penny. It’s why some of them are a little bit hesitant to find out what the tire balancing cost is going to be. They automatically assume that they’re going to have to pay an arm and a leg to have tire balancing done. But they’re often relieved to find out that the tire balancing cost isn’t anywhere near as high as what they might think it is.
On average, most places will charge people about $6 to $20 per tire to perform tire balancing. That works out to be about $24 to $80 for all four tires on a car. There are also some instances in which people might be eligible to receive free tire balancing based on where they bought their tires and what brand of tires they chose to go with. You should look into this prior to having your car’s tires balanced. You could save yourself a nice chunk of change if you happen to qualify for free tire balancing on your car’s tires.
Who Should You Hire to Do Tire Balancing?
If you know that it’s been well over 6,000 miles since the last time you had tire balancing done or if you’ve noticed any of the signs of tire balancing issues that we talked about earlier, you might be wondering where you should take your car to have it worked on. Can any old auto repair shop supply you with the services that you need at the right tire balancing cost?
More often than not, you can take your vehicle to almost any auto repair shop to have your tires balanced. But you can also take your car to any oil change place or even to a place like Walmart to have your tires balanced. There are so many options for people to go with. What’s important is that you take your car to a place that will set you up with the services you need at the lowest tire balancing cost. They should also be able to perform tire balancing from start to finish in right around an hour for you.
Can You Do Tire Balancing Yourself?
The tire balancing process isn’t as complicated as other car maintenance jobs. As we just touched on, you should only have to spend about an hour or so waiting for your car to be finished when you bring it in for tire balancing. But we should point out that this does not mean that you should attempt to tackle tire balancing on your own. That will often be a very bad idea if you don’t know what you’re doing.
There are special tire balancing machines that are specifically made to help those who work on cars to bring tires back into balance. Unless you have easy access to one of these machines, there isn’t going to be a surefire way for you to balance your tires, no matter how hard you try. You should leave the job up the processionals instead. They’ll have a machine that they can use to balance your tires. It’s part of the reason why the tire balancing cost is what it is.
Is the Tire Balancing Cost Worth It?
At this point, you should be well aware of just how important it is for you to do tire balancing. Without tire balancing, you could very well end up riding around on a set of tires that are more worn-down than you think. But still, that doesn’t stop some people from asking, “Is the tire balancing cost worth it?” It’s a silly question for them to ask.
The truth is that, by not paying about $80 to have your tires balanced, you could easily find yourself in a situation where you have to unexpectedly replace all the tires on your car. You’re going to be so mad at yourself when you realize you could have saved yourself hundreds of dollars by having a simple tire balancing done.
You should think of tire balancing as an investment that you’re making in your car. You’ll be saving yourself a lot of money in the long run when you suck it up and pay the tire balancing cost. You’ll also save yourself the time that it’s going to take to find new tires for your car when your current ones wear out.
Can You Get Rid of a Car If It Has Tire Balancing Issues?
Are you constantly having tire balancing issues even though you take your car in for tire balancing when you’re supposed to? This could be the result of some other kind of problem that you’re having with your car. You might want to pull your hair out when you see your tires wearing down quickly even though you’re doing everything possible to protect them.
When this is the case, you may want to consider getting rid of your car altogether and buying a new one. It’s possible to do this when you work with junk car buyers like Cash Cars Buyer. We have no problem purchasing vehicles in almost any kind of condition. Even if your car is in desperate need of tire balancing, we’ll take it off your hands and help you avoid the tire balancing cost.
Interested in selling an old car to us? We encourage you to give us a call and find out what it could be worth. Contact us now for additional information on our junk car buying services.