For mounting and balancing new tires where do the rest of you take you MINI's. I noticed on my white S-Lites that the weights are stuck down with double sided tape on the rim back behind my spokes. I have never seen weights placed in this fashion before. I am used to the typical unsightly clip to the rim kind.

Can any tire place do this? Do I have to request it? Is it just a runflat thing? Do the rest of you just use the popular tire chains to mount your tires?

 

That's a common way to attach weights to alloy wheels because the lip is usually too thick for a hammer-on weight. I used those back in 1985 when I ran a repair shop.

My guess is that any tire shop would use stick-on weights for alloys, but you can always have them note it on your invoice just to be sure.

 

For your stock rims, the stick on weights are correct and common. You can ask the shop if they use those weights when doing balancing. If the rim has a little lip on it like most stock alloy rims do then the other type of weight can be added.

You can request the stick on weight as it applies to your rim. The weights have nothing to do with runflats or anything with the tire itself. Some shops do not handle mounting of runflats for their equiptment and the difficulty with doing it.

Many popular chain stores can do your mounting and balancing for aftermarket or stock rims and tires especially if the tire size is stock. If the tire size is wider than stock sometimes a specialty performance wheel shop is needed to do the mounting and balancing because their equiptment is better suited for that job. But the cost would be more like $15-20 per tire to mount and balance vs $10 a tire to do the same at Costco.

 

The stick-on weights are also popular because you won't have to see the
clip-on weight on the rim visible to the eye on the face of the wheel.

kinda sucks if you have expensive wheels but then a lump on the rim
looking like a bug bit it.

 

Clip weights also breach your wheels finish. When you crack a paint or enamel is will only begin to flake from there!

Alex