Many years ago I worked at 4 Wheel Parts. We had a brand of balance beads we used and were having poor results with them doing there job. I sat down and read the instructions and they said to go ahead and balance your tires to the best of your ability with conventional weights, then add the beads and they would fine tune any remaining out of balance issues. At that point we are seeing pretty good results and good customer feedback.
I just read the instructions on a couple of the brands used now days and they say not to pre balance your tires. I wonder why, or what changed?
I am having an issue on my Corvette. The wheels are so wide and have such a heavy offset that you can't get the weights in the proper place or at least where the balancer wants them to be. The spokes of the wheel consume that space. Just like our trucks, I really don't want clamp on weights on the outside of the wheel. But, it seems most OEM's use this method. I'm half tempted to add some beads and see what happens. If it doesn't work, I can just break the bead and suck them back out.