My Dynabeads Experience

[Sharp3502]

My BFG KM2 35's were taking way too long to get here on backorder. I have been waiting for over 2 months so I opted to change my order to 315/70/17 BFG AT/KO's.

I had read about Dynabeads in the forum in multiple places and thought I would give them a try. I bought a total of 4 packs, each with 10 ounces of the off-road beads that have to be poured in when you mount the tires. I spent about $70 with shipping etc.

I took the beads and instructions to the tire store to have them installed and told the tech's to take all existing weights off the wheels, and not to balance anything. They did like I said, poured in the beads, and mounted the tires......and off I went to see if it worked.

30mph......steering wheel shaking.
40mph......still shaking
got up to 65........still shaking

I gave it a day and half, and still had steering wheel wobble.
I called the number on my dynabeads reciept, and asked what I should do.

This is what was explained to me:

There are two kinds of tire/wheel imbalance.....Radial and Lateral.
Evidently the beads only help with radial imbalance, but not lateral.
He said that one of my front tires must have a lateral imbalance.

He told me to go back and have the tire shop balance the tires. He said that the beads would throw off the balance machine a little but they should be able to to do it.

Well....the tire shop added about 4 ounces of weights to each wheel and my steering wheel is fine now.... no shake/wobble.
They were able to get each wheel/tire to within 1/2 ounce of 0.

This leaves me asking myself....why did I buy these beads? To NOT have to balance the tires? But, I did have to balance them. I dunno.

Since these are new tires and I never drove on them without beads, I don't know if the beads are really helping or not. I will say that it drives like a dream now. However, you should consider that I went from Mickey Thompson MTZ's to BFG All Terrains...BIG difference.

I'm not sure what to think now, they might be helping, they might not.
You can draw your own conclusions.

[kokopelli]

That really doesn't sound very promising. = Ron

Sharp3502 previously said:

My BFG KM2 35's were taking way too long to get here on backorder. I have been waiting for over 2 months so I opted to change my order to 315/70/17 BFG AT/KO's.

I had read about Dynabeads in the forum in multiple places and thought I would give them a try. I bought a total of 4 packs, each with 10 ounces of the off-road beads that have to be poured in when you mount the tires. I spent about $70 with shipping etc.

I took the beads and instructions to the tire store to have them installed and told the tech's to take all existing weights off the wheels, and not to balance anything. They did like I said, poured in the beads, and mounted the tires......and off I went to see if it worked.

30mph......steering wheel shaking.
40mph......still shaking
got up to 65........still shaking

I gave it a day and half, and still had steering wheel wobble.
I called the number on my dynabeads reciept, and asked what I should do.

This is what was explained to me:

There are two kinds of tire/wheel imbalance.....Radial and Lateral.
Evidently the beads only help with radial imbalance, but not lateral.
He said that one of my front tires must have a lateral imbalance.

He told me to go back and have the tire shop balance the tires. He said that the beads would throw off the balance machine a little but they should be able to to do it.

Well....the tire shop added about 4 ounces of weights to each wheel and my steering wheel is fine now.... no shake/wobble.

This leaves me asking myself....why did I buy these beads? To NOT have to balance the tires? But, I did have to balance them. I dunno.

Since these are new tires and I never drove on them without beads, I don't know if the beads are really helping or not. I will say that it drives like a dream now. However, you should consider that I went from Mickey Thompson MTZ's to BFG All Terrains...BIG difference.

I'm not sure what to think now, they might be helping, they might not.
You can draw your own conclusions.

[Sharp3502]

There are other people on the forum here that swear they are the best thing since sliced bread. Thats why I went ahead and got them.

I found a good explanation of lateral imbalance here if anyone is interested.
I assume that when it says Dynamic Imbalance, it means lateral.

Tire Balancing - Discount Tire Co.

[Fjamming]

Sharp, I've written a bit on this in my build up thread. It's my feeling that you really need more then advertised. Maybe the KM2s need more then 10 oz in one of the wheels? Get the beads out and try to balance them traditionally and you'll find out how much weight you need.

[Sharp3502]

Fjamming previously said:

Sharp, I've written a bit on this in my build up thread. It's my feeling that you really need more then advertised. Maybe the KM2s need more then 10 oz in one of the wheels? Get the beads out and try to balance them traditionally and you'll find out how much weight you need.

I had ordered the beads when I thought I was getting the KM2's, so I ordered the 10oz bags. I ended up changing my tire order to the All Terrains which are smaller and only require 8oz according to the website. I should have an extra 2oz in each tire more than they say is required.

My truck drives perfect now, so I'm not gonna go to the trouble of pulling the tires back off. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they don't work. I honestly don't know if they are working or not. There is just no way to find out unless I tear everything back apart, and I wouldn't ask the tire shop to do it. They have helped me enough already.

[Fjamming]

Sharp3502 previously said:

I had ordered the beads when I thought I was getting the KM2's, so I ordered the 10oz bags. I ended up changing my tire order to the All Terrains which are smaller and only require 8oz according to the website. I should have an extra 2oz in each tire more than they say is required.

My truck drives perfect now, so I'm not gonna go to the trouble of pulling the tires back off. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they don't work. I honestly don't know if they are working or not. There is just no way to find out unless I tear everything back apart, and I wouldn't ask the tire shop to do it. They have helped me enough already.

Sharp, the problem I have with traditional weights is that they either fall off or I'll spin the tire on the rim. When I spin tire on the rim, it's no longer balanced. Since I need to run low pressure, spinning is a lot more likely to happen to me. I run low teens or 12 psi when I off road. I know what you mean about don't fix it if it ain't broke. These beads make you wonder because they are kind of spendy.

[1 Bored Clerk]

I think the big advantage for the beads only shows up on Bias ply tires...like FJamming's LTB's...which are probably extremely difficult to balance with a reasonable amount of weights. You are all balanced out now so no worries...you just picked the other way to skin a cat.

[Sharp3502]

Well, I called the Dynabeads guy again. He told me to call him after I got the tire shop to do their thing. He said that its good that I got them all balanced out, and that my benefit from the beads will be not having to rebalance them for the life of the tire. He says that any tire wear that would over time take you out of balance should be taken care of by the beads. There is also the case where a rock, or mud or something gets stuck to my tire/wheel and would cause vibration normally. The beads should help in those cases too. I guess my purchase was a little insurance against a off-balance tire for various reasons.

[FJCcrawler]

I don't really see the point of the beads if you end up having to put the normal weights on, because that was the whole point of having the beads was to eliminate the use of standard weights.

Well at least you have a bit of insurance in keeping your tire balanced!