zpeed

There are red dot and yellow dot. I remember that they have to do with the light weight spot. But forgot what exactly is it.

Luke@tirerack

the colored dot indicates the high spot or heavy spot of the tire (all tires have them) and should be placed 180 degrees from the high spot / heavy spot of the wheel (all wheels have them)

ima55r2

I read somewhere that the colored dots were supposed to line up next to the air valve. I've been doing that for the last 3 sets of tires and sometimes no weights are needed for balancing.

scorchie

The colored dots are supposed to line up next to the air valve on SOME wheels. Specifically, placing the heavy spot of the tire at this lighter spot will help balance the wheel before adding weights. Sometimes the valve hole indicates the lighter spot, but more recently, it does not.

On wheels where the air valve can be located at any position on the rim (usually STEEL rims only, but some aloy rims), the valve hole can be drilled at the low/light spot on the rim, or the heavy spot to try and "lighten" it and balance it.

But although most alloy rims have the air valve in a specific place on every rim, the air valve can sometimes still locate the lighter spot on the rim. On cheaper/not-so-well-engineered rims, the drilling of the valve hole will create an imbalance (removing material makes it lighter), so this becomes the lighter spot.

On better rims, the drilling of the valve hole is taken into account, and a similar amount of material is removed from the opposite side of the wheel. Therefore the non-positionable valve hole is no indicator at all of the light or heavy spot on the rim. These rims are sometimes marked with a dot, the same way the tires are marked.

-s-

zpeed

So what is the different between the color RED and Yellow?

ima55r2

Where should one look for the rim dots and how does one determine the light/heavy spot on the rim if no dots are showing...Does it go on the tire balancer without the tire?

Or does the orientation of the tire on the rim really matter as long as the balancing weights don't exceed a certain number.

scorchie

Red dot = high point in roundness

Yellow dot = light point in balance

Mount red first ("RED RULES"), if you have a low point mark on the rim (valve stem on steel wheels, valve stem on some aluminum wheels (if the valve stem is in different places on the alloy wheels, then it is there... but a lot of current alloy wheels have the stem in a certain place because of the design), or a dimple or paint spot on the back of some alloy wheels.

If you don't have a low spot marker, then mount using the balance marker. If your rim is not machined out to counteract the drilling of the valve hole, and it is drilled in a specific place because of the wheel design, then this may be the lightest point. Then the yellow dot is mounted 180 degrees from this.

It's really difficult to know what the wheel manufacturers intended without finding the specifics of the wheel you are working with. The tires are a little easier to work with, especially since each manufacturer releases technical information to shops.

-s-

zpeed

Thank you I just went out to the car and see that the red is mark is an arrow and the yellow is a circle dot.