If you guys buy your tires online - do you mount them yourselves. If you do is it easy to do???? Or do you take them in to a tire shop - and do they need to be balanced??? Thanks

 

i mount my own. i got that $50 manual tire changer from harbor freight, lots of liquid dish soap to slick up the bead ring, my air compressor, and WHAMMO! it's on. i've never thought about balancing the tire. never seen the weights. never really had any vibes from an "out of round" tire. oh well, someone will correct me if i'm wrong! have a great day and a better tomorrow.

 

The hardest part about ATV tires is seating the bead on the rim. If you have a good compressor that will put a huge volume of air into the tire quickly, you've got most of the battle won. I brought mine to a shop as my nailgun compressor isn't that big. Another trick is to put a ratchet strap around the tire right in the middle of the tread once the tire is on the rim. When you tighten the strap it helps to force the tire bead towards the rim.

 

I just bring them to a tire shop, its like $8 per wheel.

 

Thank you for the responses -

 

Breaking the bead is the hardest part even with a manual bead breaker. One thing I found that helps for breaking the bead is leaving a little air in the tires so the sidewall does not collapse. Of course it only helps on one side of the tire.

Most of the time when I go to seat a bead, I do not need straps. I take the valve stem out and use a blow gun to seat the beads. Works almost every time. Of course it helps that you have a good air compressor too.

I just got done putting 4 new tires on my Rubicon. I had to take the new tires off of the rims since they were brand new Kawasaki take offs and stick on my rims. They were probably the easiest tires I have ever changed besides breaking the bead and air leaking around the bead.