Product Review: Marc Parnes Balancer

gts_rider

Well-known member
The good...

Customer service? A+++, couldn't be better.
I sent in some pics and rudimentary measurements of the GTS front wheel on a Monday morning, traded a couple emails in the afternoon, full setup arrived in my mailbox on Wednesday.
I was looking for something to balance the GTS front, plus the single sided vfr rear, plus all the other more standard wheels ('87 viffer, 250 ninja, SV650, klr). He did some quick calculations and told me he thought I could use a special GTS cone plus the wide VFR rear cone so I could save some money without having to get 'two' special cones just for the GTS. Wait, he's going out of his way to 'save' me money? Yeah, he did!
So, the first thing to try was the GTS wheel since I already had it dismounted when it arrived. Turned out that the GTS cone + the VFR cone were not quite a match. The two cones met in the middle ever so slightly, maybe by 1mm or less. I put that down more to my rudimentary measurements than Marc's calculations.
I finally got around to contacting Marc back on the following Tuesday morning (Heck, this guy is so fast I can't even keep up with him). I told him of the problem and he immediately sent out a customized VFR cone that would work for both the GTS front and VFR rear. I received that in my mailbox the next day! No extra charge and he included postage and labels to send the non-working VFR cone back to him.

The Product? A+++, couldn't be better.

This static balancer is a 'highest quality', made in the U.S., precision machined tool. I'm impressed. Appearance and tolerances are fantastic and it does in fact actually 'work' as or better than expected. On that front, if a picture is worth a thousand words, here's links to a few thousand more words.
Note, the left/right pictures were mislabeled but are in order as listed. The smaller cones in the group picture are the 'standard' adapter cones. You can see the one labeled GTS which is used with the unlabeled fat VFR rear. The fat VFR rear uses that plus one of the standard cones on the other side for the small opening.



groupconesmounted.JPG


http://home.earthlink.net/~labikermail/group.JPG

http://home.earthlink.net/~labikermail/longview.JPG

http://home.earthlink.net/~labikermail/leftside.JPG

http://home.earthlink.net/~labikermail/rightsidelong.JPG

http://home.earthlink.net/~labikermail/rightside.JPG

http://home.earthlink.net/~labikermail/leftsidelong.JPG


The bad...

Sorry to disappoint, I've got nothing bad to say about Marc Parnes, Company, Customer Service, or even him personally.
Damn!, that sucks for Marc because instead of being a multi-page world famous thread, this one is destined to quickly sink into oblivion.
Here's a thought. Even if you've got nothing to say or have no interest in balancing your own wheels, how's about a friendly 'bump' to support a quality mc business producing a quality product...

edited to add: http://www.marcparnes.com
 
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