Rep Power: 418

I just bought everything that I need to mount and remove my tires from my wheels as well as to balance the whole tire and wheel assembly.

I got pissed off 'cause I couldn't find a place that would mount the tires that I bought from tirerack.com onto my wheels and remove my old tires in the process. Bleh. Screw them!

And now... When I make my DIY and show you how it's done, so can you.

So far I bought a couple of tools off of Harbor Freight Tools (search Google) and some 1/4 oz. stick-on wheel weights. The total cost so far is about $100. For your information, that's the quote I received from a place that would do what I asked, but only with an alignment in the process (which is something I do myself anyway).

Anyway, any experts out there have some sites I could learn from? I found a couple, but I'm always on the lookout for more...

 
Rep Power: 0

I hope whatever tools you picked up from Harbor Freight allow mounting/dismounting without touching the alloy wheel, if you have alloy wheels.

On one of my "junkyard special" alloy wheels I had in the past, I had gotten a flat tire. I took it to my buddy who worked at a service station. The tire mounting/dismounting machine was one where part of the tire bar rested on the lip of the wheel. We did everything we could think of to keep it off my wheel, but it did some decent damage to the lip regardless. No big deal on the junky one I had, HUGE deal it would be on a nice Civic alloy.

The tire place would not mount and balance your tires without doing an alignment? I took a set of Kumho ECSTA HP4 716 to Goodyear, and they mounted and balanced, on their touchless machine, for $45 total. No alignment done.

 
Rep Power: 418

Well, there were two places I tried. Both of them said that they only mount and balance tires they sell. I want to buy tires at the lowest price, so there you go...

About touching the rim... I'm not sure if the tools I bought allow touchless mounting/dismounting? We'll see though. I read up on this and people say that you can put this kinda door edge guard onto the lip of the rim and it protects it.

 
Rep Power: 0

That is kinda strange that the places would not mount and balance your tires. Maybe 2 out of 20 places I have used in the past have declined to do it.