best place for mounting & balancing?

[bcman]

I'm getting a set of azenis soon, and I need to get them mounted and balanced. A good balance job is impotant to me, but so is price. Does anyone have recommendations? would Sears work, or a place like Big O? Or should I take them to a non-chain alignment shop?

 

[MaaseyRacer]

Here are a couple of pointers that I have just learned from my latest experience with mounting my tires on my new wheels.
-Ask that they use sticky weights only. They should only use them but some shops like to still use hammer ons.
-Watch them, and inspect your rims a few times, and note all dings and scratches.

I took my rims and tires to Goodyear first to have them mounted. That was a mistake. The guy dinged my rim, and then tried to play it off like it came that way. They put hammer on weights on my wheels which scrathed the fuck out of the inside lip of the rim. However I sent my buddy down to drop the wheels off for me. That was a huge mistake on my part, as he went and got a burrito while this was happening.
The hammer on weights were so big that they wheels would not clear my suspension on my civic, and the wheels would just not turn all the way around.
So then the next day I went back to Goodyear and bitched, and the guy bitched back. I then got my money back, and took my business to a local family owned tire shop, and they did it right. If anyone is in the Monterey, Ca. area I highly recommend Newton Bros. Tires. They even gave me a discount as they felt bad about my previous service at Goodyear.

BTW - Offtopic, but that is a sweet Klein in your avitar, or at least it looks like a Klein with an Ultegra group on it.

 

[reckedracing]

do you need your tires to be demounted, and then remounted?

i would advise going anywhere that you can watch them work, if they will let you...

most places will not, siting insurance or some shit, but if you know someone that owns a shop they will usually be more than happy to let you talk to them and let you watch as they work...
well, with something simple like this anyway...

i would advise green painters tape around the outside lip of your rims so you can easily spot any flaw they may have caused to your rims...

the tape will also help prevent any marks if there is a mishap with your wheels...

def ask if they use sticky weights or not...

the problem with the other weights is they (usually) can only put them on the inside edges of the rim so its not balanced as well as it can be...

also, not sure about this procedure, but they have machines that can balance your wheel on the car to take other moving assembly parts into consideration i suppose...

good luck...

 

[bcman]

thanks for the advice guys. Yeah, it is a Klein with Ultegra. For an aluminum bike, it's really light and fast. But I'm getting spoiled for upright bikes, since I work in a recumbent manufacturere's shop.

 

[asmallsol]

Make sure that they use a no touch tire mounter. The older style ones will fuck up your painted rims.

 

[CRX-YEM]

if you'll really want a perfectly balanced wheel, check out this site GSP9700.com

you can search for a shop in your area Find Shops

this is the mother of all dynamic wheel balancers