I had new Cont. Road Attack 2s installed today and...

The tech said he was concerned because he had to put 2ozs on the front wheel to get it to balance, he said the Metzler coming off ony had 3/4 on it??
He told me it may be a bad tire??


Is 2ozs to much??, do you think I should contact the seller about a replacement??, I got it up to 65mph on the short ride home & didnot feel anything...
I donot want to put miles on it if I am going to need to return it...


Any advice??


Thanks...

 

The tech should have broken the bead and rotated the tire on the wheel. Then rebalance. The tech may have inadvertently mounted the heavy part of the tire with the heavy part of the wheel which would have made this an issue. You may want the shop to take a crack at remounting it.

Typically the heavy part of the wheel is where the valve stem is and you would match the light part of the tire with that. That part is marked by a dot on the tire by the mfg. this spot marks the runout.

Some new tire mfg process leave the tire with little to no heavy or light spot. Pirelli is one of them.

All that said some wheels heavy spot is not exactly where the valve stem is. On my wheels it is off by about two inches. I have balance stand at home and put the wheels on there without a tire s I could find the real heavy spot. Then I am able to mount my tires accordingly.

 

2oz of weight is more than usually needed to balance a tire/wheel combo, but it's not grossly excessive.
That being said, bitterpil's comment about checking the wheel only (with stem/core and cap) for it's heavy/light spot is good advice.
The common assumption that the heavy spot is usually at the stem location is wrong.
(Honda's Common Service Manual makes the same mistake)
It depends on the wheel and stem. On three of four wheels I checked (VFR and SV) the heavy spot was exactly opposite the stem. This makes sense given the amount of metal removed to make the stem hole and considering that the stems are mainly rubber, therefore lighter than the removed metal. On the fourth wheel I checked (VFR rear) the heavy spot was about 60 degrees from the stem.
Your wheels may vary. Once checked, mark the wheel on the inside of the rim for future reference and recheck if you replace the stem with a different one in the future.

 

That's my point, most sources say the stem will mark the heavy spot of the wheel, without indicating that this can vary. I'm not trying to bash anybody, just trying to correct this common misconception. Most shops (almost all) will never check a bare wheel before putting a new tire on. If you can't check the wheel balance yourself, ask your shop to that before they mount the next tire. It will tell them how the tire should be mounted.

Always a fine line, it's never a good idea to imply that a shop doesn't know how to do their job, but I've had plenty of direct evidence that this is the case. If you know where the heavy spot of the wheel is, you can tell the shop and they'll mount the tire appropriately.

On long road trips, I've had tires changed twice where the old weights were left on and more added in a different location when they balanced them. Once the tire was mounted in the wrong direction. In all these cases, a chat with the service manage put it right. Usually it's the most inexperienced wrench that gets the tire changing jobs and they don't always know their stuff. Check your wheels carefully after any tire change.