Determining conical vs. ball seat rims

[Digitalwave]

How the hell do you tell them apart? Is it as easy to spot a ball seat rim as it is to spot a ball seat lug nut?

My Rials were vibrating this week after getting them mounted and road force balanced. I brought it back to the shop and they rebalanced the rims. They said, however, that at least part of the vibration was because the Rials were ball seat and I had conical lugs on. I felt the seat on the rim with my finger and you can feel a VERY slight curvature in the seat. BUT, my Azevs and even my OEM 328i rims feel and look exactly the same, so I think they actually are conical seat rims. I can't find any photos of a ball seat rim online to compare how they look.

Here's two pics of the lug seat, if it helps:

http://www.stasisproductions.com/portfolio/albums/album02/IMG_8807.jpg

http://www.stasisproductions.com/portfolio/albums/album02/IMG_8808.jpg

[M13]

I've never even heard of those two terms until this post.

How much would it run you to just buy some ball seat lugs and call it a day?
What if you ran studs?

Is OEM ball seat or conical?

[M13]

Hmm, I wonder what my Type Is are.

Hope you get your answer in this thread.

[bmw325e30]

Are there different sizes of ball seat lugs? I haven't heard of this problem before, very interesting.

EDIT: I do remember every older car I have worked on has had ball seat lugs, up to late 80's american cars. I guess they could be ball seat?

[M13]

I'm sure you're careful with this but maybe they're overtorqued? When my wheels were torqued to 88lbs, they vibrated. Now they're at 81 and seem fine.

Besides being bent/damaged, weights/balancing, torque, and now different lugs.. What other contributing factors determine vibrations? Hmm..

[M13]

The balancing might be the reason then. How much are you off by? Couple ounces makes a huge difference.

[M13]

Ah, thought you were trying to get rid of all your vibrations. NVM.

Good luck with getting an answer.