Why do all of my wheels have the dot?






TIA

He2

 

I always wondered that too!

 

This should be able to help you - http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/testin...elPassVeh2.htm.

 

They mean the blue paint dot on each of the rims, and as far as I can tell it has nothing to do with the tires. After a bit the dots softened up from snow and water and I was able to easily scratch them away with my finger nail.

 

Oh, I thought he was talking about the tires!

 

It's to align the tires with the rim. I wondered the same thing when I picked mine up last weekend, and my friend who used to detail at a dealer explained that the blue dot on the wheel is supposed to line up with the red spot on the tire, and the yellow spot lines up with the valve stem.

Or something like that...

 

the dots mean nothing at all. They just put them there to mess with us

 

Interesting that they would want to have a certain part of the tire line up with a certain part of the wheel...

Doesn't make much sense to me, but at least I know now that it will eventually come off!

Thanks!

He2

 

I'm pretty sure the blue wheel dot and red tire dot are to weight match, that's why they put them together. Putting them together helps correctly match the balance of the wheel. Can't remember which is which, but IIRC one represents the heaviest part of the wheel (obviously this is a slight difference) and one represents the lightest part of the tire.

 

well on my stock 18"s there were "white" dots on all the rims??!?!? lol what is the difference between blue and whote dots?

 

hmmm. didn't know that, but it makes sense! that would require the least amount of lead counterweight when balancing.

those smart engineers

 

Correct... it's to help match up the tire to the wheel using the least amount of weights for the smoothest balance. No tire or wheel is perfectly balanced... so this is a way to match them up with the least amount of balance mis-match.

 

i wonder how many tire techs actually know that?