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.
Armstrong tire changer is fine - and a bubble balancer will do a
great job of "static" balancing a wheel. What it cannot do is a
"dynamic" ballance - which ballances the tire from inside to outside
as well. Great for rear tires, but sometimes you need dynamic on the
front to eliminate shimmy.