They were already balanced by the shop that put the tires on in the first place, and since driving it after the rotation I did, I don't feel any vibrations or anything.

Some people say you need to rebalance after rotation, and some don't. It doesn't make sense to me that you would need to, though, since balancing is done off of the car itself, so theoretically once a tire is balanced it shouldn't need to be again unless something happens to shake it up like a huge hit or something. Am I right about this?

 

As you said, they were off the car when they were balanced so if you do not have a wobble you probably are just fine.

 

no, your fine. only if you start to feel something.

 

Does three no votes make it unanimous? No need to rebalance unless a wheel weight fell off during the rotation process, which isn't that likely.

 

If they were balanced when they came off they will be balanced when they go back on after rotation.

 

Thanks!

 

And to beat a dead horse since we are all in agreement we balance as tires wear to compensate for the inevitable uneven wear. Also if a tire is removed from the wheel it needs a rebalance as both wheel and tire have some imballance and we need to compensate after the tire is mounted.

If the tire is just moved around, the weights are still in place and the tire was running smoothly before you moved them to thier new position you are fine. No balance needed.

Headlines - did you determine that the tires are not unidirectional? Just curious...

 

Yes, I did. I was mistaking the Dunlop logo (which includes an arrow-like figure in it) for rotational arrows, since they are placed all along the top sidewall. Yep, it's a bit embarrassing!

 

Though I don't do this very much, it is recommended you get your tires rebalanced about every 5,000 miles, or whenever you do a realignment. If you bought your tires with a warranty, rebalancing should be included. Tire rotation should be done as often. If your tires are directional, it's recommended to just go front-back and not do the cross-rotation (which would require remounting/rebalancing all four tires).

 

[QUOTE=gawannamini;3017551]And to beat a dead horse since we are all in agreement we balance as tires wear to compensate for the inevitable uneven wear. Also if a tire is removed from the wheel it needs a rebalance as both wheel and tire have some imballance and we need to compensate after the tire is mounted.

Tire wear should not be "inevitable". If your car is properly aligned and you rotate your tires, they should wear evenly.

I'm about to replace the tires on my X3 that have over 50,000 miles and are all worn evenly.

 

Yes, tires should wear evenly, but the MINI by design does not do that under normal driving conditions. Just look at it from behind; you can obviously see the two rear tires have an offset camber. This is done because MINIs are designed to do alot of "cornering," hence the love for twisties. Long drives on a straight highway will eventually cause the inner edge of the rear tires to wear down. You will definitely want to rotate tires as much as possible to prevent it all at once.

I don't care how much anyone here has tried. I really highly doubt one MINI owner has been able to get the rated tire life mileage. You already have the softer compound of "W" or "Y" rated tires working to your disadvantage. I typically get 25,000 miles out of 40,000 mile-rated performance tires. The MINI is a sports car. If you really want to try to get optimum mileage, get tires that have a treadware above 300 and are "S" or "T" rated (but you won't like them).

 

I got 40k miles out of my OE Goodyear Excellence RFTs. They have a treadwear rating of 240, but I'm not sure what kind of mileage that translates to. The wear was nice and even across the width of the tire.

 

A treadwear of 100 is a baseline for a given tire type. Read more here: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=48. The value has to be compared against other tires of the same type, which means don't compare "S" rate tires against "W" rated tires. Any ZR performance tire will be made of a softer compound to provide better road grip. This is the tradeoff and will definitely mean a lower tire life. It's actually almost comical these tires have a mileage rating.

 

Running over dead horses or even live ones can be very detrimental to tire balance & alignment.

Back on topic...

If one is running a lot of negative camber rotation will help. If you want the most out of the tires you can have them flipped on the rim to get the most out of them. Remember to rebalance!

 

The best way to unbalance them is to put them back on sloppily so they're not hub-centric. That doesn't mean the hub of the wheel is bad, just that they didn't align the wheel bolt chamfers within the wheel chamfers very well. Some cars are more sensitive than others, the MINI is one of the more sensitive out there, right there with the Miata and Elise. Maybe it's a 4x100 thing *shrug*

 

When tightening the lug bolts, do it in stages in an X pattern so they are all tightened as evenly as possible. I do it in about three stages, finger tight, snug, and torqued to 103 ft-lbs (R56).

Wheel hangers make rotation easier.

To the original question: Most shops balance wheels off the car, so which corner of the car it is on wont matter. Reblance if you feel vibration at 140 mph.