Question on new tires

Just had a new set of tires put on and noticed the shop put the wheel balancing weights on the outside of the wheel. My last set of tires weren't set up like this and I don't like seeing the weights every time I look at my wheels.

Is there any reason the weights have to be on the outside of the wheel? If there's no real compelling reason they have to be there I'm going to go back to the shop and ask that they put them on the inside, out of view.

Depending on the wheel, weights on the outside might not stay on and their use may damage to wheel.

That's one of my concerns is messing up the finish of the wheel where the weights are. I'll be calling the shop up today to see if they can fix the problem.

Another question though, does the placement of the weights greatly affect the performance of the wheel? For instance, is the wheel more balanced when the weight is on the outside as opposed to the inside of the wheel?

Placement of the weights can affect the total amount of weight used, but not the quality of the balancing job. An exception is if the wheel is damaged and the tech doesn't observe this.