I saw a harmonic balancer that works on the same pinciple.

That post on the H.A.M.B. contained some really useful information: many new tires are not round !!! I spent several years working for Goodyear Tire and saw how they made tires. Just like cars, you don’t want tires made on Monday or Friday, or at the start or end of the shift. Tires are made by hand and handmade things are imperfect. Back when I worked for Goodyear they still made the Double Eagle, a premium tire, costing twice as much as the tires they supplied Detroit for new cars. The Double Eagles were made by the best tire builders, out of the best materials, to the highest standards. Double Eagles often required no balancing weights, they were that well made. About fifteen years ago I bought a set of Goodyear Eagle GT’s for my 66 Fastback at an NTB in Houston, Texas. After I got home I found that one wheel had five ounces of stick on weights in one spot. If that wheel was parked anyway but weight-down, the weight stack would gravity release from the wheel. I took that wheel back to NTB, had them pull the tire and balance the American Racing TorqThrust D by itself, no balance problems. We then visually inspected the tire and found a huge buckle on the inside of the tire, like a wrinkle in the carcass. Something horrible happened to that tire in the curing press, folding the uncured tire to make a really thick spot at that point. Unsurprisingly, NTB showed no interest in replacing that tire. I convinced them that the tire could not have passed Goodyear’s internal QC and that Goodyear would want that tire back for internal process improvement.

The tire manufacturers sell their best tires to the car manufacturers. The tires in the tire stores may or may not be of equal quality. The cheaper tires typically have less skilled tire builders and lower quality raw materials. When I see the ultra low prices on some of the offshore tires it’s hard to believe they can even buy the raw materials for what they are selling the tires for. Makes me wonder about the quality of the tires. Four tires mounted and balanced for $100?  No thanks!

There are several comments on that thread about shaving the tire’s tread to make the tire round. That will help if you want to fix tires you already have, but the manufacturer is supposed to supply round tires. If your new tires are not round, take them back, demand new, round tires! Unless you paid $100 for four.

Balance beads? They have been around a long time. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. I like the wheel balancers made like harmonic balancers: a steel donut filled with steel balls and oil fastened to a steel disc that is installed between the wheel and the hub. I don’t understand the physics either.