Not really long story short, I brought some Speedline 2118s over to Sears to have tires mounted and balanced. Being 15" wheels there are only nanometers of clearance between the caliper and the rim, so naturally almost all the front weights were knocked off immediately. Some I had to shave to clear the caliper body.
To the mechanics credit, he only had the wheels and tires, though he did know what car they were going on so I thought it would be obvious there would be low clearance and weight placement might be a concern.
Now I know next to nothing about balancing tires besides that the machine tells the tech where to stick the weights. Almost all the techs weights were on the outermost part of the wheel (farthest from the strut) - my question is, does it matter if the weights are on the inside or outside of the wheel, or only where along the rim? I could easily get some more weights and stick them on the innermost part of the rim to clear the caliper if it doesn't matter, but otherwise I would need them to be rebalanced I suppose...?