I have chrome wheels and just had new tires put on last week. I've been back twice to have the rears re-balanced. They finally marked the tires and rims to see if the tires were slipping/spinning on the wheels. Low and behold, they were. They (Discount Tire) told me it's due to the chrome being extra slick and to wait a few days until the soapy water they use to mount the tires drys and they will stop slipping and then they'll re-balance them. Has anyone ever heard of this or are they yanking my chain and the tires are defective? I'm a bit skeptical. Thanks.

 

I do not know about chrome being extra slick, but I was once advised by tire installer to take it easy(no hard acceleration and hard braking) for few days because of soapy water and possibility of tires slipping
So yes, drive for a few days and have them rebalance them.

 

dang, reminds me of RC cars without proper supergluing the tires to the
rims. lol..

 

i have never heard of a tire slipping on a rim. with that sense, it would seem like you would lose tire pressure, because if it slips, there isnt a full pressure contact between the rim and the bead of the tire.
it just doesnt make sense to me.

why did u need to re-balance your tires anyways? did u feel a vibration?

 

I was going to say the same thing. lol

 

sound bogus to me

 

It's very possible for the tires to slip on the wheels until the soap wears away.

A similar thing happens to vehicles running slicks at the track. This is why some of the slicks you see have big white painted lines on them - to see if they're slipping on the rim from low tire pressure.

 

It is possible, but I have never heard of it.

If this happens after a week, I would look into other issues. Perhaps poor tire manufacturing or other sources that could cause this.

 

Common for tires to slip on rims [even without chrome] if the untrained incompetent [or just lazy] installer used too much soap lube to speed the installion of new tires on rims.

We always recommend that owners rebalance after 250-500 miles.