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Originally Posted by sagarpadaki Where to get these?Which type of shop has these? |
AFAIK, they are not available in any shops. You will have to contact specialty suppliers who can source these for you. There is an Indian manufacturer who will send you the small quantity you require if you request. I do not want to post their address in a public forum. PM me, and I can send you their contact info.
After posting the thread, I have realized something. There is not really a whole lot of potential users in India for whom this technique is of much use.
The main clientele for this "bead balancing" are in western countries where driving is usually at relatively high (60 - 80 mph) and uniform speeds for almost all vehicles including commercial vehicles. Commercial vehicles have been found to have fuel efficiency gains of 2% using these beads, which can be significant over the life of the vehicle. Offroaders, scooters, vintage cars, motorcycles with customs wheels who dont want ugly weights, and other users all have one thing in common. They all drive ~70 mph on the freeway. They need balanced wheels, and at these speeds, the beads work.
In India, commercial trucks could actually do with balanced wheels which could save them tire costs drastically. But the whole trucking business in India seems to be run so illogically, purely based on maximizing profit on every run, the long term life of the truck be damned. So many of them overloaded running so inefficiently. They can rarely reach speeds of 80kmph nor maintain it. So, I think the idea of beads to save 2% fuel and claims of upto 30% tire life would be the last thing on their mind. Exception would be Volvo and other inter city coaches who do maintain higher speeds.
Offroaders like Gypsys and MM's with monster tires and mudboggers could use this since normal weight balancing is hardly reliable for them especially after an OTR where some tire spinning and/or mud is involved. But these vehicles rarely go over speeds of 80 kmph on the highways where they would find out that their tires are out of balance.
When you think about it, only cars, suv's and some bikes are capable of going and maintaining speeds of 80 in India. The regular weight balancing shops are such a common sight in India now that it would be the most practical solution for regular cars and suvs. But, your tire balancing is only as good as the technician who did the job. There are several variables which could lead to error in standard balancing, starting with the tire dimension input step. I've had balancing wobble on my Civic right out of the Honda service center on 2 occasions. Thankfully I have a friend owned tire shop where I can supervise the work. But after installing the beads on the Civic, I no longer have to worry about balancing again for the life of the tire. No ugly weights on my alloys, either.
I know the beads work because it took some fine tuning with the amount inserted to stop the steering wobble on the Civic. The motorcycles worked right off the bat with the recommended amount.
Now, the main stumbling block: sourcing the beads. If you were in the US, you could just go to Dynabeads website, and order the amount you need for your application, wait for the courier, install them and away you go. In India, you could do 2 things. One, you could pay the ridiculous shipping charges and get them from Dynabeads, or Dynaballs, or Equal, all companies with similar products. Or, you could do what I did and source the material from its original market, which is in rolling mill grinding. The only hitch is that they are used to supplying in 25kg packs which is way too many beads, unless you want to do a whole truck fleet or something. If you send a special request they might send you 1Kg, which also is too much. One SBK tire needs only 2oz for rear and 1oz(~28 gms) for front. 1 Kg costs about Rs.2500 including shipping. I needed enough for installing these on 3 cars/muv and 2 sbks, so 1kg seemed OK for me.
So, I guess now I see the wisdom in the moderator having moved this to the motorcycle section, as SBK riders are the only real potential users in India at the moment. Since their numbers are increasing even though the service and support industry for them is not keeping pace. I dont know much about the sbk service scene in metros, but sbk wheel balancers were hard for me to come around. Although, there was an offer from a TBhpian (ajman28) in Cbe who knew where to do it locally. Maybe most guys have access to them and are getting it done. I dont know. I do know that riding with balanced wheels is something that you have to experience to feel the difference.
I was really impressed with the beads, and thought of shouting it out to the world, and did so by posting it on TBhp. Dont really think it is something that will be of much help to most.
Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Ride Safe.