Wheel balancing on the golf gti

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Larger diameter wheels inevitably means more problems in getting a decent balance with some style of wheels being a lot worse than others. Most garages/ tyre distributors all now use the electronic type unit in the interest of timesavings.
This works fine for your bog standard 13", 14" steels or alloys but problems occur on anything more wild, particularly on the rimless styles like TSW Stealth and Softline 5 spoke styles. With these type of wheels there is no outer rim to place a weight on, so all balancing must be done through the middle section and inner edges.
The answer to achieving a decent balance is to use the old style dynamic balancer which spins each wheel up to roadspeed with the car on the jack, and then fires a strobe at the rim to detect vibration. The tyre fitter then through trial and error and hopefully some experience fits the usual weights to get a balance. As the wheel is still on the car you effectively get a balance of the wheel, hub and driveshafts in lateral and longitudinal planes.
Unfortunately this takes a long time and because of the effort involved most garages/tyre dealers no longer use them. If you are having problems with the standard type machine it's worth tracking one down, as you'll notice a massive improvement from the strobe type of machine.
One last point, once you've had your wheels balanced, mark the wheel's position in relation to the hub before you remove the wheel. Otherwise you'll lose the balance.