Tire installation question

[devilsfan]

I'm having a local shop install my new lift in a few weeks. Is it better for them to do the tire install as well? Or would it be better to take it to someplace like Discount Tire? Who would be better at getting the balance right on big tires (42-44")?

Stacy

[Hellz]

chances are, if they are capable of doing a body lift, im sure they can do a simple tire install.

plus, i would be thinking more of a 1 stop shop in case somethign goes bad. that way you are trying to remeber who did what.

As for balancing, go with the beads instead of the weights.. makes tire balancing stupid simple.. actually there is no balancing.. they put the beads in when they put the tire on the rim and thats it.. the beads automaticly balance the tire as you drive.

[guruerror]

...plus, i would be thinking more of a 1 stop shop in case somethign goes bad. that way you are trying to remeber who did what...
...or end up with a situation where one shop blames another shop for a shoddy piece of work.

[devilsfan]

Here's the catch, tho - lift shop is 45 mins away. Discount Tire is 10. Anytime there's an issue (ie, rotation), I would rather go around the corner than battle traffic in the next city over. Especially since I'll be at 5 mpg or so.

Also, DT has been helping me find decent tires and rims that will fit for over a month now. I feel kind of shoddy saying "thanks!" and then taking my business elsewhere. But I also don't want to be in the situation of getting the lift done, taking it to DT, finding I need adjustments, taking it back to the shop, etc.

Hmm...does anyone know if you can order from DT and have them deliver it to the shop instead of doing the install themselves?

[H2R]

I had to drive around and get these done as certain shops just dont have a large enough machine to mount the tires. Most of the Alignment machines just can not fit Hummers with wider and larger tires. The company that did my lift were not able to do the tires and alignment and just took it to another shop and charged me. What about regearing?

[HUMTECH]

Whereever you have them done they should be road force balanced when the tires are that big. Road Force Balancing takes the tire & wheel assembly and optimizes wheel run out and weight loaded tire deflection. After the road force value is minimized the wheel & tire assembly is balanced.

[[__--MUD--__]]

I would just have whoever you are buying your wheels/tires from mount them. I had to drive 70 miles just to get my new tires mounted because no one else could handle the size.

How big of a lift are you going w/ ? Your going to need 6" + cranked keys minumum for that size tire.

I like to tell everyone be prepaired to spend another 6-10 Grand after your lift. Dont think your going to get a lift installed and it still handle/drive like stock. It will be worse than stock. Your entire steering system is going to piss through parts 5x the rate, braking is going to be horrible, you absolutly are going to require gears. I "think" 41" is the max tire size any of the handheld programmers can set. Over that there is a electronic module you can splice into the transmission. Or a custom ECM program...but thats not cheap.

I've gone through all the above **** to get back to stock performance and now better than stock. Let me know if you want the details on all the ****. I am having a custom chromoly centerlink, chromoly pitman & idler arms machined up right now along w/ a bad ass set of heim joint tierods just to handle my lift wheels/tires.

[devilsfan]

No worries on the ride....got everything taken care of up front. Going with a 12" Bulletproof lift, including brakes, steering and gears. The shop I'm going with has a great reputation, they've actually done bigger installs and several H2s, so I'm comfortable with it. I've had my 6" Fabtech on 37s for 7 years now, and not a day goes by that I don't see a bigger lift on a passing truck and drool. Figured life is too short to not go for it. I don't want to be some 80 yr old woman and regret never having a monster truck! :)

I figure that DT has to have some way to balance the tire or they wouldn't sell it, right? Otherwise - how can they promise installation?

[[__--MUD--__]]

Thats going to be a big mother ****er...post pics when its done!