Over the years, tyre fitting and removal technology (I.e. the common Tyre Changer, Tyre Machine, or Tyre Fitting Machine – depending on your chosen terminology), has evolved incredibly, in line with the rims and tyres upon which they operate, and the vehicles to which those wheel assemblies are fitted. Giuliano Tyre Machines have been at the forefront of this development, with our parent manufacturing company, Giuliano Automotive, being responsible for a large array of ground-breaking and patented technological breakthroughs during the last 50 years.
On face value, tyre changers all look very similar (and, in fact, ‘a tyre changer is a tyre changer, they’re all pretty much the same’ is a common line we hear all the time), because the basic principle is very well established and proven. You have a means of clamping the rim horizontally in front of you in a convenient working position, you need a way of breaking the bead which is typically done on the side of the machine, and you have tooling to remove the old tyre and refit a new one to the rim. As a workstation the design is pretty much dictated by those elements, and you end up with the classic tyre changer design. Powering all of this is motor and gearbox, pneumatic cylinders, and all the moving mechanical parts required to carry out the process.
However, the difference between a good tyre changer and a bad one (and when we say ‘bad’, it is generally about the quality of construction) is vastly understated in terms of appearance, it is in use that any shortcomings are highlighted. Our factory have been a leading light in latest tyre fitting machine innovation and technology over the last few decades. Some of the highlights of our developments include:
Power X – traditionally, tyre changers have used two clamping cylinders to operate 4 clamping jaws (although there was a very famous, low cost machine from manufacturer Corghi back in the 90s which used just one cylinder!). This means that two of the clamps are ‘driven’, that is they are actually powered by the cylinders. Then the remaining two are ‘slave’ clamps or jaws, meaning that they are operating simultaneously with the driven jaws but through synchronisation via a ‘quadrant’ or ‘star’ plate underneath the turntable. In the late 2000s, we developed the first four cylinder turntable. The benefits of this are relatively obvious, but to summarise them, it provides a consistent clamping pressure and movement of all four jaws, with twice the ‘gripping power’, less mechanical parts to go wrong, and much longer life. We have always summed this up by saying if you asked an Engineer to design a tyre changer today, and forget about cost, he would undoubtedly use 4 cylinders; it is just obvious. The only reason the two cylinder design exists is because it is cheaper. That said, we are not convinced is is cheaper, because when you consider the life expectancy and cost of ownership, we are in no doubt that, long term, Power X four cylinder clamping is much cheaper. Our faith in the product is supported by the 5 year warranty we offer on that whole, vital area of the tyre changer, namely the gearbox through to the turntable and everything in between. Learn more about Power X.
DualForce – once again, we turned convention on its head by re-evaluating the way in which we consider the breaking of the bead. The traditional method of placing the wheel against the machine and pressing a pedal to activate a pneumatic ‘shovel’ to press the bead in has become increasingly ineffective, mainly due to the advent of run-flat tyres and TD rims, but also because the hugely varying diameter of rims means that the universal design is being stretched to the limit in terms of effectiveness. We have countered the diameter issue with a series of re-designs and adjustments to the bead breaking components, I.e. the shovel and the arm operating the shovel. However, more recently we also made the operating process so much more ergonomic for the user of the machine. Our new ‘DualForce’ system enables you operate the bead breaker either by hand or foot, but more importantly gives the operator total control over the process.
The standard ‘all or nothing’ that comes from a traditional bead breaker (meaning that, when you press the pedal, the bead breaker goes in all the way until it reaches its end position, the operator has no control over this movement) has been done away with, and replaced by a convenient, and much safer, controlled movement of the blade. So if you remove your thumb or foot from the handle or pedal, depending on how you are operating it, the bead breaking process will immediately stop. This ‘stop/start at will’ motion is especially useful on run-flat tyres where the blade can go crashing in after loosening the bead and actually crack the rim. With DualForce, you only make the movement you need.
QX ‘LeverLess’ – Whilst we weren’t the first to conceive and develop the notion of ‘leverless’ tyre fitting (whereby an automated tool does the work normally carried our by hand using a tyre lever), we were definitely the first to make that technology more accessible, by introducing it into the specification of a conventional tyre changer, as opposed to a high cost automated unit.
Our QX system can factory-fitted or retro-fitted to any Giuliano, Balco, or Hofmann Megaplan (2004–2025) tyre changer, completely changing the capability, ease and safety of the machine. Essentially, you can make a £3000 machine every bit as capable as a £10,000 machine simply by adding this device. Often copied but never, to this day, equalled (despite lots of attempts!), our patented QX design has really become the industry standard for leverless tyre changers.
So, this is just 3 notable examples from a half-century of ‘firsts’ from Giuliano Automotive, our parent company and manufacturer of the entire range of Balco tyre fitting machines.
Now we should talk about what is new, and what is set to change the way we approach tyre changing in the future, just as these three examples have in the past. Undoubtedly the most prominent right now, and potentially much wider reaching than anything we have done before, is the development of the ‘Par-Move’ design.
Par-Move (short for Parallelogram Movement), is effectively replacing the traditional tilt-back style of tyre changer in the same way that the tilt-back called time on the ‘swing-arm’ back in the late 80s.
This design, which has now proven itself after some two years on the market with a rapidly growing share of the market, uses an articulated arm to provide automatic locking of the demount head (or leverless device) at the rim. The structure is far more rigid and durable than a tilt-back design, and also removes the need for room behind the machine for the column to move backwards. Using a pedal, the operator can also rely on automatic repositioning, which makes working on a set of 4 rims and tyres super-quick and easy.
Like all things we boast about being reliable, we back up what we say with a five year warranty on the whole mechanism of Par-Move. The Par-Move design is standard on our SX229 Pro machine, but can also be utilised on other models with some prior notice, and we even have some customers using it inside mobile fitting vans due to its incredible space / capability ratio.
What we have found is that, when a customer moves to Par-Move, there is no going back, they just love it! As such, we are convinced that this is undoubtedly the best design on the market today in that class or category of tyre changer. Contact us to learn more about Par-Move tyre changers.