lead

[fabsroman]

It is a little weight that they put on the lip of your rim, or if you have high performance rims like I have on my Mustang, they glue them to the inside of the rim so they cannot be seen. The wheel weights are there to balance the tire. Whenever a wheel feels like it is hopping all over the place, it is because it isn't balanced. The weights aren't that big, but they do the job. Quite amazing actually.

By the way, the ones that are put on the outer or inner lip of the rim are just smacked into place with a hammer.

I don't know if lead is still used in plumbing, but that is where my dad used to get it in 10 lb. ingots. Kind of like gold bricks, but only grey in color and worth a lot less instead.