after rasslin' around a couple of tires last evening, i think i've finally come to the conclusion this old guy is almost too wimpy anymore to use my manual tire machine i designed and built 40+ years ago............
i have changed thousands of tires over the years, and have never broken anything on the machine, or any aluminum wheel using it.
my old body just doesn't have the a$$ i used to, and after last evening, i'm still worn out.
as i still insist on changing my own tires so i have complete control over not boogering up the tire or the wheel [or both], what should i look for [new or used, preferably used because i don't have a huge income or budget to work with] that is "friendly" to both tire and wheel, plus being able to work with up to 15" wide wheels ?
a big TIA to those way smarter than i am on these things.

No Clue but it likely won't be cheap. might watch C/L and FBM. Anoother thought would be to check with local suppliers and you might be able to get a used one when a shop is buying a new one

We have Atlas tire changers in both shops. The first one is over 10 years old. They don't get used as much as they would in a full service tire store, but they have done exactly what we want and have given us no problems what so ever. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another Atlas should the need arise.

Be careful of used ones. In most cases they have been used extensively and are still expensive.

one of my main concerns on the used ones were being wore out and needing expensive repairs.

Always had a snap on or coats,in 2020 my last snap on was getting tired needing about 1200 in repairs,getting ready to retire in a few years,I done my homework & decited to buy a weaver tire machine. It workes as good as any&I change about 500 tires a year.I only paid $2600 compared to 10,000 for a snap on,equipped the same.I have no problems so far.

Wow. I mis-read the title of this post and thought it said "Time Machine". Much different discussion than what I was expecting.

Of you are going to do any alloy wheels, get a rim clamp style machine. The center post style like a Coats 2020 can break mags.

I bought an old coats center post for $500 several years ago. It’s paid for itself in tire changes already. The problem is that the old style tears up the beads on older tires and they will not seal back up. I’ve got lots of project cars and I save tires to mount just to have as roller. When I buy or sell a project car, I always need tires to roll it. I don’t think the the newer style rim clamps will tear up even older tires so I would look for one of those.

I gave away a Coats 2020 due to problems with it breaking beads. In all fairness it might have just been worn out but.......

Same here! I already had the dial set to 1970 and was ready to go shopping...

Sorry for the derail OP... back to tire changers. I don't have much to offer except that the old shop I used to work in had a Hofmann from the 1980s that was a workhorse and easy to use. We had it for probably 20 years until we had to upgrade to one of tho newer machines (due to company requirements, not that there was anything wrong with it) that I found less user friendly and not as reliable. I can't give much advice except in my view, the simpler the better. As long as the machine has enough torque and that the arm is robust and well mounted such that it doesn't flex or move around much, you should be good to go. I probably wouldn't go with a used one unless you could find one that somebody had in a small volume shop (that isn't a tire place) or a personal machine that was hardly used. If you're going to have to chase down parts and repair it, you may as well just find a reliable shop with a careful tech to change your tires for you. On the other hand, I find that newer "stuff" in general to be not as well built as it was just 20 or 30 years ago, so buyer beware I guess.

Best of luck with it!

i'm looking around, using some recommendations, but haven't found anything yet.
as many tire as i change, i would go broke having any of the three shops in town change 'em for me, at $25.00 a pop.
but if you buy tires from them, they will mount them free........

Yup that's why I've been looking for a good used rim clamp style machine myself
The bad part is that when a deal does pop up I don't have the cash

The one that I bought 3 years ago which is a XingKong 988 rim clamp and I've been pretty happy with it.
I bought it in a tire machine, spin balancer combo.
When I bought the combo it was just over $2300, now it' closer to $2600.

I got it because I was tired of spending $20-$25 per tire having tires swapped out after the wife roasts her tires down to the cord.
She's known as the Burnout Queen.

A buddy that had a sideline used tire business was using one like it with less accessories and said they hold up fairly well and his looked like it had seen some abuse over the years he had it (close to 10 years at that point).


I've done 12 inch wide wheels on it so far (for buddies, swapping out their slicks).

My only complaint is the air blast inflator set up really takes two people to use it.

I had an old used Coats 40/40 machine before that.
The problem was I couldn't do anything bigger than a 16 inch diameter wheel.
All our new stuff are 20's.

Here's a video of a guy that bought one explaining about them.

In his video the whole image is flipped, all the accessories are on opposite sides from reality in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF05AJWyrCM&ab_channel=EricKunz

If you jump on facebook there are plenty for sale but first have to decide your budget. Pretty much any rim clamp under a grand will need some kind of repair. Even though most anything you buy used will be worn but if you don't change tires every day should last you a long time, I got lucky when I stumbled onto this Hunter machine and the guy only wanted $650 for it. I made him dismount and remount a tire then handed him the cash. Only had it a couple months and has worked great so far.