the UPS man with my meds and the replacement tire. In the last month I have had all 4 of the tires on my Spirit Dry rot and come apart only this time I chose to buy one from Tire Rack on line. At $144.00 and change a whole bunch cheaper than my tire store where I bought the other 3 and this one was a P245-60-R14 and that makes the price about 50% of the price paid to my tire store.
Now granted, I had the other tires replaced over night and balanced and paid premium prices for that plus assorted material fees, handling fees, un-needed but required fees and fees to account for fees. This one I have to mount and balance my self. I should have done them all that way. There was time a while back I was pretty good at balancing using a bubble balancer. And other than being older and hurting more I think I still am and after all I have a bead breaker, proper hand tire irons, a compressor to air things up and a harbor freight bubble balancer in my garage. Plus a stock of weights. The bubble balancer is not that good but with care full handling it is o.k. and will do rear tires really well and probably be able to get away with doing front tires o.k. So between cooking a turkey tomorrow I will probably mount the tire up and get it ready to go back on my Spirit.
Next I think I will order two hankooks for my Saturn. The rear tires are beginning to dry rot on it now. I think I like this approach to buying tires. It certainly is cheaper. And with money tight, cheap works.

 

I buy from Discount tire, they have always had the best price whem I'm buying.

 

So, are you going to leave it with just a bubble balance, or are you going to have them spun?

 

I'm gonna leave it with Bubble Balance. Using the right technique a bubble balance is a good one.

Back in the day before spun balance machines actually became as good as they are and believe me no argument, they are good now. I could at that time balance a tire with a bubble balance better than the machines at the time.
I can still use a bubble balance quite well and as long as there is no measurable out of balance when driven, I am not going to bother with re-balancing things.

Also just to have said it, in my area and I don't think the situation is a whole lot different in general. When the tire and alignment technician is functioning with English as a second language and you have to get a work order translated in order to have it done if I have to tell the person how to actually do their job in order to get it done correctly, I don't really have a problem with my doing my own bubble balance vs some one else actually knowing how to run the machine and then doing so. I have walked out of tires stores when it was explained to me that I required both a 2 and 4 wheel alignment on a car that nothing was adjustable with the rear wheels or how I needed to have a caster adjustment part installed on a car that needed a one (1) inch wrench to make the adjustment with.
My personal favorite local tire store has regular rotation of people making it some what questionable as to what actually is the requirements needed to perform the jobs asked to be done.
And it has become almost impossible to locate a mom and pop operation where the employees actually know what they hell they are doing and do it regularly.
They are still there, but getting fewer and harder to find.
EPA and Osha are both counterproductive to getting a job done well these days and be cost effective while doing it.

I wish I could afford to purchase a used tire removing machine as they actually do a better job of protecting aluminum rims than I can with good tire irons. But by cushioning with rags I am o.k. doing it manually.