Does your car vibrate almost every time you get behind the wheel of it? The vibrations that you’re experiencing in your vehicle could be caused by any number of things. But more often than not, a car will start to vibrate on a regular basis when it needs to have wheel balancing done. You should start by having your car’s wheel balanced when you first notice it vibrating to see if that fixes the problem. The wheel balancing cost shouldn’t be much, but it’ll work wonders for your car. Let’s take some time to learn more about wheel balancing and why it’s so important.
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What Is Wheel Balancing?
Most car owners are familiar with tire alignments and understand how important it is to have their tires aligned every so often. But they’re not always as familiar with wheel balancing, which is why many of them don’t get around to balancing their wheels often enough. But it’s an essential part of maintaining a car and can help your car’s tires to last longer.
In order to ensure that all four of the tires on your car rotate evenly at all times, you need to have special weights placed on the rims of your wheels during the wheel balancing process. This will prevent your wheels from wobbling around when you’re out on the road and stop them from causing vibrations to occur. Over time, the weights on your wheels will need to be adjusted to keep them working in the way that they should, which is why you’ll need to get into the habit of performing wheel balancing.
To be clear, wheel balancing and tire alignment are not the same thing. There are many car owners who get their tires aligned regularly and don’t think that they need to worry about doing wheel balancing as a result of it. But these two things are different. You can, however, have them done at the same time, which is what many car owners choose to do so that they don’t neglect one or the other.
Why Is Wheel Balancing Important?
Now that you know a little bit more about what wheel balancing is, we want to spend some time talking about why it’s so essential to do wheel balancing. Even though wheel balancing is a minor maintenance job in the grand scheme of things and even though the wheel balancing cost shouldn’t set you back very much money, it’s important to the overall well-being of your vehicle.
As we touched on earlier, your car might begin to vibrate a lot if you don’t do wheel balancing often enough. You can stop it from shaking uncontrollably on you by paying the wheel balancing cost to have your car’s wheel brought back into balance. But you can also help your car in many other ways by doing wheel balancing. Here are some of the ways it’ll help your car:
- Improves the traction that your tires are able to get when you drive your vehicle
- Gives you better control over your car while you’re steering it
- Extends the lifespan of your car’s tires
The weights that will be placed on your car’s rims during wheel balancing don’t weigh a whole lot. But as you can see, they’re going to benefit your vehicle in so many ways. It’s why you should prepare to cover the wheel balancing cost whenever the job needs to be done.
How Often Should You Have Wheel Balancing Done?
At this point, you know what wheel balancing is and why it’s important. But what you don’t know is how often that you’ll need to shoulder the wheel balancing cost so that you can have your car’s tires balanced. So let’s discuss that next, even though it’s not always easy to nail down exactly how often you should arrange to have wheel balancing done.
Generally speaking, most experts will tell you that you should do wheel balancing about once every 3,00o to 6,000 miles. This should be enough to keep your car’s tires balanced. But with that being said, you might want to do wheel balancing more often than that if you drive on a lot of rough rides on a daily basis. You might also want to consider going for longer stretches of time in between wheel balancing if you drive your car mostly on smooth surfaces.
Overall, it’s not a bad idea at all to schedule wheel balancing services about once every one to two years just to be sure you’re having them done often enough. You won’t have to worry about your car suffering from a lack of wheel balancing when you make it a point to do it that often.
What Are Some Signs That It’s Time to Do Wheel Balancing?
As long as you do wheel balancing every one to two years, you shouldn’t see too many signs that’ll indicate the need for wheel balancing. You’ll be able to count on your car’s tires to rotate evenly at all times. But if you let your car go for years at a time without doing wheel balancing, you might start to spot some signs that’ll let you know it’s time to have wheel balancing done.
Here are a few of the most common signs that people will start to see when their cars are in desperate need of wheel balancing:
- Tires wearing down faster than they normally would
- Tires wearing out unevenly
- Car not getting good gas mileage
- Vibrations felt in the steering wheel and other areas of a car
If you experience any of these symptoms, you should spring into action right away and have your car’s wheel balanced. The wheel balancing cost is low enough (more on this in a moment!) that you shouldn’t have to put off doing it for too long. If you don’t, you might start to see more and more of these signs pop up and plague your car before everything is all said and done.
Should You Drive a Car That Hasn’t Had Wheel Balancing Done in a Long Time?
Do you know for a fact that it’s been more than two years now since the last time you had wheel balancing done? This should be a cause for concern. You could be putting your car’s tires and your car as a whole at risk if you don’t do schedule wheel balancing soon.
You can, however, usually get away with driving a car that needs wheel balancing for a short period of time as long as you don’t experience any extreme vibrations in your car. If your car starts vibrating uncontrollably, it’s going to be very difficult for you to drive it safely. You could put yourself, your passengers, and your car into harm’s way if you keep on driving it with unbalanced wheels.
The best thing that you can do for a car in this case is to take it somewhere to have wheel balancing done immediately. This will bring your car’s tires back into balance and prevent them from causing further problems for you or your car.
Where Can You Have Wheel Balancing Performed?
If you need to have wheel balancing done, you shouldn’t have to look too hard for a place to help you out. Just about any oil change place should be able to get the job done for you. Doing wheel balancing is a routine job that almost anyone with a little bit of experience working on cars can do. You can have it done during your next oil change or arrange for your mechanic to do it for you whenever they have the time.
You may also want to consider taking your car to a tire and wheel speciality shop, though, especially if your tires have seen better days. They might recommend that you get brand-new tires to replace your worn-out old ones. If this turns out to be the case, they’ll usually wipe out the usual wheel balancing cost and provide you with free wheel balancing when you buy new tires from them.
But whatever you do, you shouldn’t ignore obvious signs of trouble with your car’s tires. If you don’t pay the wheel balancing cost, you could be forced to replace your tires sooner than later. That could cost you a small fortune and make you wish you had taken the time to balance your tires instead of continuing to drive around on them.
Should You Ever Try to Do Wheel Balancing Yourself?
We just spoke about how almost anyone with a little bit of experience working on cars can do wheel balancing. And it’s true! Wheel balancing is far from the most complicated car maintenance job in the world. It’s relatively easy to do it.
But that doesn’t mean you should attempt to do it on your own. Professionals have access to the right tools and equipment to do wheel balancing in the right way. You don’t want to step in and attempt to do it on your own only to balance your tires incorrectly and pay the price for doing it. You could do more harm than good while balancing your wheels and make your tires wear out sooner than they would otherwise. Your best bet is going to be to pay the small wheel balancing cost to have someone else balance your wheels for you.
What Will Wheel Balancing Cost You?
When you hire someone else to do wheel balancing, it’s obviously going to cost you some money. But you’ll be very happy to know that you’re not going to have to shell out much money to have wheel balancing done. On average, people usually only pay somewhere between $25 and $80 for wheel balancing. And when you consider that you’ll only have to do it once every two years or so, it’s practically nothing at all to keep your tires in good shape.
You should know that the wheel balancing cost might vary depending on several different factors. The place that you take your car to for wheel balancing is going to be one factor that could change the price you pay for wheel balancing. The make and model of your car is another. But in general, you shouldn’t have to pay more than $100 for wheel balancing. If you do, you’re probably taking your car to the wrong place for it.
Is the Wheel Balancing Cost Worth It?
If you’re planning on keeping the car that you’re driving around now for the foreseeable future, wheel balancing is something that you’re going to want to do early and often. You might even want to do it more than you have to just to make sure your tires aren’t ever unbalanced. The wheel balancing cost is going to be well worth it for you, especially since it’s not all that high to begin with.
If, however, you have an older car on your hands that has lots of problems, you might not want to continue putting money into it. You should still do wheel balancing if you plan to keep on driving it. But you should also think about possibly selling it if it has issues that extend beyond just its tires. The wheels on your car aren’t going to be your biggest concern when you have a vehicle with so many other problems. The wheel balancing cost might not be worth it to you.
Can You Sell a Car With Bad Wheels on It?
If your old car’s tires are shot and no amount of wheel balancing is going to save them, you might not think that selling your car is something you would be able to do. But if you’re up for selling your car to junk car buyers, it’s something that should still be on the table for you. Junk car buyers will provide you with cash for your car, even if it has tires on it that aren’t safe anymore.
Cash Cars Buyer would love to make you an offer for your car, despite the fact that you haven’t paid the wheel balancing cost in quite some time now. We’ll pay you cash for your old car and take it off your hands for you so that you don’t have to spend another dime on it. Contact us today to get an offer for your old vehicle.