Symptoms of unbalanced tire?

[Lean L]

I recently replaced one tire on my car. Long story short, I bought the car from a used dealer and we struck a deal where two tires would be replaced since they are in really bad shape.

The other two are both Michelin Pilot Mxm4s. One was 7/32 and the other was probably 2-3/32.

I left those two on the back non drive wheels. Now it's been 10k miles and I need to rotate the tires. I found a matching tire where the treadwear was almost identical to my good rear tire. The shop mounted it and I rotated them myself.

Problem is, I now remember that they did not balance the wheel before installing. I drove the car already and I don't really feel much difference in terms of vibrations and the steering wheel does not shake. The only symptom is that it steers a little bit towards my existing tire.

I assume that this is due to my existing tire being slightly more worn? The shop is a father and son place so they will not balance it for free for me. Is it worth the money to balance it now?

 

[Spicedaddy]

What kind of shop mounts a tire without balancing? Are you sure they didn't?

It's pretty much a given when you tell someone to mount a tire that they'll balance it...

 

[ummduh]

An out of balance tire will give you a shake at certain speeds.

If it's pulling to one side or another it's something else, like a slipped belt or other tire failure, alignment, or other mechanical failures.

Easiest way to see if it's a bad tire is to put it on the other side and see if the pull follows it. If it now pulls to the other side, it's a bad tire. Balancing won't affect that.

One car I bought, from some corner lot, I got scammed. All 4 tires were defects. They all looked brand new, and drove good enough for test drives, but all 4 were out of round. I'm willing to bet that wasn't an accident.