MNSmith,
I’ve heard your argument also. I’ve never worked for a wheel company or a tire company. My understanding was that all the wheel companies (steel, aluminum, magnesium) had an agreement that the valve stem hole was an indicator of where the runout of the wheel would counteract the runout of the tire (as indicated by the dot). I won’t argue that the material removed to punch the hole for the valve stem does contribute to some minimal imbalance. I do know that matching the hole to the dot made the service manager happy and kept me from getting my butt chewed. And in my recent Firestone case it fixed my vibration. I followed up w my dial indicator and my runout was reduced to .020”. Maybe someone in the group that may have worked on the engineering side of a wheel or tire company can chime in?
