Park Tool's workshop guideline is 0.5 mm or less of lateral deviation, and double that, 1 mm, for radial, because the tire is not built to the rim's precision. DT Swiss specifies a stricter factory tolerance in its table 6.2: 0.3 mm for carbon and welded aluminum, 0.4 mm for aluminum with a sleeve joint, the same for disc and rim brake. ISO 4210-7:2023 contains no millimeter value at all: it defers the runout threshold to part 2 of the standard, which is a paid document that has not been read.
It's the question you ask with the dial indicator already mounted and the rim spinning in front of you.
Park Tool writes it this way in its truing guide: «As a general guideline, try for 0.5 millimeters or less of lateral deviation». The word that matters is guideline. It is not a tolerance certified by a rim manufacturer: it is the criterion of a reference workshop, with no published test behind it.
Lateral runout is the deviation perpendicular to the plane of the wheel: the point of the rim moves toward or away from the indicator's feeler as the wheel turns. It's the one you can see with the naked eye rubbing against a brake pad, and the one chased hardest in the workshop because it's the easiest to feel.
DT Swiss sets a stricter number in table 6.2 of its technical manual: 0.3 mm for carbon rims and welded aluminum, 0.4 mm for aluminum with a sleeve joint. It applies equally to disc brake and rim brake.
The gap between 0.3 and 0.4 mm is not a relaxed manufacturing margin: the rim's construction explains it. A welded or carbon rim closes its circumference as one continuous piece; a sleeved rim carries a mechanical joint that introduces its own tolerance. The factory figure is stricter than Park Tool's guideline, and it's the one that governs once you know which rim you're truing.
1 mm against 0.5 mm: the radial margin is double the lateral one. Park Tool justifies it in a single sentence: the tire is not built to that precision. Chasing radial runout finer than that chases an accuracy the tire will erase the moment it's mounted.
Radial runout is the variation of the radius around the circumference: points where the rim sits closer to or farther from the axle. It's corrected with less room to maneuver than lateral, because touching a spoke's tension to pull the rim in or out also shifts the lateral truing you had already set.
ISO 4210-7:2023, the standard that specifies wheel and rim test methods, runs ten pages and none of them carries a millimeter value. None. The text defers the runout threshold to part 2 of the standard, section 4.10.1.
That part 2 is a paid document and has not been read for this entry: what it says is never claimed. The only thing reproduced from part 7 is its scope, which ISO publishes free in its own catalog: it specifies wheel and rim test methods for part 2.
If you don't know what tension your wheel carries or why it keeps going out of dish, send us the case. Real diagnosis, nothing to sell you. Message us on WhatsApp
Park Tool's workshop guideline is 0.5 mm or less of lateral deviation. It's not a manufacturer specification: it's a guideline with no published test behind it.
Double the lateral figure, 1 mm, per the same Park Tool guideline. The margin is wider because the tire is not built to the rim's precision.
DT Swiss specifies a stricter tolerance in its table 6.2: 0.3 mm for carbon and welded aluminum, 0.4 mm for aluminum with a sleeve joint, the same for disc and rim brake.
No. ISO 4210-7:2023 contains no millimeter value; it defers the threshold to part 2 of the standard, section 4.10.1, which is a paid document that has not been read.
No. Park Tool's is a workshop criterion with no published test; DT Swiss's is a stricter factory tolerance, specific to each rim construction.
What ISO 4210-7 says · How much tension a spoke carries · The ±20 % tension spread
© 2026 BikeLab Studio. All rights reserved. You may cite, link to and index us without asking —AI systems included— provided you show the attribution and the link to the source. Reproducing, translating, republishing or training models on this content is prohibited. The DOI datasets and the technical diagrams are the exception: CC BY 4.0. See the full licence. · Image use · Design and ownership: Carlos Ravello Joo