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One area where every workshop can make a significant improvement to the way a car drives is in the way the wheels are set up, and the best way to do this is using a wheel balancer.A wheel balancer allows you to quickly and conveniently assess any slight imperfections in the way a wheel turns, and then add small weights to the wheel in order to offset the effect of these problems.When the wheels are running completely in true the ride quality will be a lot smoother, and the fuel efficiency will also be much improved.The long term benefits of balancing wheels properly on a vehicle are that it reduces the mechanical vibration that the car feels and the vehicle will be much smoother on the road. In turn this reduces the amount of wear and tear suffered by key components of the vehicle - in particular the axle assembly and shocks, giving these parts a much longer lifespan.One of the reasons why a wheel balancer is required in an auto work shop is that due to the manufacturing process used in making tires, there are always slight imperfections in them, such as slightly different thicknesses of rubber, and these cause the tire to be slightly uneven. This must be compensated for by adding small weights to the wheel in order to offset the effect of the tire’s imperfections.The method by which a wheel is balanced is very straightforward. Quite simply, the process begins with the wheel being removed from the vehicle and mounted onto a wheel balancer. This is a computerized machine that rotates the wheel at a variety of different speeds. At the same time as this is done, the computer measures the vibration on the axle caused by the imbalances in the wheel. A calculation is then performed that advises the amount of weight that needs to be added to the wheel.The variety of different wheel balancers available today is enough to ensure that every single workshop can have access to an appropriate model for the kinds of work that they most often carry out.These days, even the most basic entry level wheel balancer will come armed with hi tech software that makes finding an imbalance and taking appropriate action as straightforward as any other mechanical task, and thanks to the easy to use and understand computer interfaces that have been built into these machines, diagnosing the problem with a wheel is straightforward.