On Sun, 6 May 2012 04:56:25 -0700 (PDT), stryped
wrote:

I am a tool freak lol. Also, I live in the country with the nearest
town about 12 miles away and that one is a small one with only 1-2
shops other than wal mart that can change tires or repair flats.

Is it economically feasable to mount and balance car tires at home? Is
a used balancer on craigslist easy to come by? Is a professional tire
mounter necessary or would one of those TSC manual tire changers
suffice? I also have seen those bubble balancers but have heard they
dont work well for balancing automotive tires. Is this true? My wife
is needing some tires on her escape and it got me thinking. You can
actually order tires online but not sure if it is a huge cost savings
compared to wal mart or not. Part of the reasoning is my time.
Everything around here closes at noon on Saturday and Saturday seems
to be my only day available anymore.

I got an old Coates tire machine at an old service station auction.
Very handy addition to my tool list. Smaller tires on today's big rims
are actually harder to do, might be tuff on a hand machine.

I use the bubble balancer. they work great, the trouble with them is
they are slow and putsy. Business went to dyanimic balancing mostly
because of speed to do one tire and little training to get it right.

The biggest problem I've had with my own tire changing system is
getting rid of the old tires, they build up.

Karl