2012 Trail Steering Wheel Vibration

[GrantK]

A couple of possible issues that should be checked.
*) Warped rotor - This is usually worse when braking and can be felt through the pedal.
*) Wheel (rim) run out. This checks the rim for both how close to perfectly round it is and how out-of-true (side to side variance) it has.
*) Tire placement on rim. Because of TPMS, the tires need to be placed on the rims correctly (I don't remember the mechanics name for this). Many tires have a green or yellow dot on the inside that needs to be positioned with the valve.

If there is a run out issue new tires and balancing will get you no where.

I have a 12 TE as well with Konig Countersteer X rims and Nitto Trail Grappler MT (285/70-17) and the run out was almost perfect and the balancing is great, no vibration at all so there is no reason you shouldn't be able to get the same with your setup.

 

[MacRunner]

I had the same issue with my 12 trail. The first day i bought it I replaced the stock Bridgestones with Cooper AT3 stock size P rating from a local Kaufman tire store. The initial balancing was sub par and I took it back for rebalancing. The knuckleheads ending up overtightening the lug bolts on my front right tire - stretched the bolt and they snapped off!!

Well they replaced the lug bolts and the balancing was still off. I decided enough with kaufman and took it to my local dealer for a road force balance - actually made it worse!! I had a toyota tech drive it and he stated it was likely tire runoff and go back to kaufman and have them replace the front right tire where I was getting the vibration. So back to Kuafman - spoke with the store manager and he agreed to replace the tire and he personally would install and balance.

Well from some research I did online and here on the blog I learned that most toyota wheels on SUV's and trucks are lug bolt centered and not hub centered. The Kaufman manager said my wheels are lug centered - meaning that in order for them to be properly balanced you must install the wheel on the road force balance machine with the lug bolt adaptor so that the wheel is centered correctly. He showed me that my front right tire was not balanced correctly but was close. So he corrected that tire and then checked my back passenger wheel. Remember it was just balanced earlier that day at my Toyota dealer- well it was way off! The road force balance has a number system where the preferred range is in the teens and the max allowable is 29, well this tire was 39!!! He ended up replacing that tire and balanced the new tire with the lug center adaptor and got the tire down to a 20 reading.

So we test drive the vehicle and it now is smooth as silk!! I have the stock trail wheels, so not certain about the stock SR5 wheels or Limited wheels but it would be helpful if a member could confirm if all wheels need to be lug bolt center balanced. I asked Toyota when I went in for myroad force balance if my wheels were lug bolt or hub centered and he said hub centered - well their RF balance made my wheels worse so it's very likely my dealer didn't even know!

 

[Borebrotherbore]

I got the 10,000 mile service done a couple weekends ago. My TE was only a little over 5000 miles, but half of that was towing. So I convinced the dealership to do an oil change along with the rest of the 5k mile service, rotation and what not.
Now my truck has a nice steering wheel shake from about 62 mph and on. It's pretty ****ing bad, even worse in the morning for some reason.
So, I'm going to call the dealership tomorrow and see what they will do about it. Hopefully this Toyota dealership here in the Monterey area isn't a POS.

 

[Jeremy556]

They performed a tire rotation, and likely one of your rear tires isn't balanced as well, which has now become apparent. Most tires flat spot to some degree, so ignore the vibes and steering wheel shake for the first 5 highway miles.

 

[THEROK]

You're supposed to balance your wheels at every rotation. People get lazy.

 

[Borebrotherbore]

They performed a tire rotation, and likely one of your rear tires isn't balanced as well, which has now become apparent. Most tires flat spot to some degree, so ignore the vibes and steering wheel shake for the first 5 highway miles.

Oh yeah, I have ignored it for 2 weeks now. Hoping that it was just a tire that was worn a little different. But after driving my wife's car, a 2004 Rav4, down the same roads and no steering wheel vibration. I can't handle it in my new truck. Her damn car has 50k miles on her current tires and like 8 tire rotations and no steering wheel vibrations.
I just wanted to vent. Hopefully they can get it balanced right tomorrow.

 

[AnthonyMV]

So, is this the answer.....

to the 60mph vibration problem?
Lug centering when balancing/buying new tires w/road force balancing machine?
Hope so....

I had the same issue with my 12 trail. The first day i bought it I replaced the stock Bridgestones with Cooper AT3 stock size P rating from a local Kaufman tire store. The initial balancing was sub par and I took it back for rebalancing. The knuckleheads ending up overtightening the lug bolts on my front right tire - stretched the bolt and they snapped off!!

Well they replaced the lug bolts and the balancing was still off. I decided enough with kaufman and took it to my local dealer for a road force balance - actually made it worse!! I had a toyota tech drive it and he stated it was likely tire runoff and go back to kaufman and have them replace the front right tire where I was getting the vibration. So back to Kuafman - spoke with the store manager and he agreed to replace the tire and he personally would install and balance.

Well from some research I did online and here on the blog I learned that most toyota wheels on SUV's and trucks are lug bolt centered and not hub centered. The Kaufman manager said my wheels are lug centered - meaning that in order for them to be properly balanced you must install the wheel on the road force balance machine with the lug bolt adaptor so that the wheel is centered correctly. He showed me that my front right tire was not balanced correctly but was close. So he corrected that tire and then checked my back passenger wheel. Remember it was just balanced earlier that day at my Toyota dealer- well it was way off! The road force balance has a number system where the preferred range is in the teens and the max allowable is 29, well this tire was 39!!! He ended up replacing that tire and balanced the new tire with the lug center adaptor and got the tire down to a 20 reading.

So we test drive the vehicle and it now is smooth as silk!! I have the stock trail wheels, so not certain about the stock SR5 wheels or Limited wheels but it would be helpful if a member could confirm if all wheels need to be lug bolt center balanced. I asked Toyota when I went in for myroad force balance if my wheels were lug bolt or hub centered and he said hub centered - well their RF balance made my wheels worse so it's very likely my dealer didn't even know!

 

[Zeder]

Toyota calls it Steering Wheel Flutter.

Check out the TSB on post #14.

Anyone experiencing Steering Wheel Shake please read - Page 2 - Toyota FJ Cruiser Forum

 

[AnthonyMV]

Incompetent dealer

Smithtown Toyota. Anyone on here that lives in long Island NY. Stay away from this place if you can.....man they're turning into American car dealers of yesteryear......
Brought my '12 sr5 4runner in for the 55-65 mph steering wheel shimmy.....told service meathead mngr I changed the dunflops to kumho kl61's cuz of the shimmy. He was like well ur gonna have to pay for another balance. I was like whatever guy. Just do ur effing job ok big Richard. They "balance" the tires and big Richard sm forgets that I want him to ride with me......to ck if the shimmy is gone.....I drive home and guess what? Shimmy there....but at 58,61,62 mph.....
I call back to speak with the female service writer....and she's all "you're yelling at me sir,I'm going to hang up" GTFOH !!!! geez WTF!!! Am I dealing with???
Incompetent children . "stop yelling at me " I wasn't. "I'll reimburse you" = my mechanics,my equipment, me-the service manager are complete TOOLS. So we give up......SMITHTOWN TOYOTA,SMITHTOWN TOYOTA doesn't want to fix your vehicle. They want to bus you to the local greasy spoon to get their kickback. Not fix your vehicle. Man, ive never in my life come across such incompetence.

 

[MG.]

2012 SR5 here.. Dunlops. Bridgestones, and road force balance performed..

Problem still intermittently there.

Can we change the thread title to include "SR5" ?

 

[eyerunner]

Same problem here 12 TE with new BFG & ATX Mojaves

I have the same problem as evryone else here. Tires/wheels combo has been balanced twice, still have vibration although not as bad. One thing i will mention is that i had no vibration with stock TE wheels and HT Duelers. Now i am running 265/70 17 BFG Rugged Terrains with 17x8 ATX Mojaves. When i first picked up the 4R all was well until i hit the freeway then bamn! @62-68 lots of vibration. Back to Big Brand Tire, vibration confirmed by tech. He balanced them again on road force balancer using cone not lug adapter. He also told me that the center cap that comes with Mojave wheels acts as a hub centric ring. Yikes! He has offered to balance them all again. This time i am going to request lug adapter not cone, and ask that the center caps be left off so they arent fighting the center of the lugs. We'll see!

 

[MG.]

I have the same problem as evryone else here. Tires/wheels combo has been balanced twice, still have vibration although not as bad. One thing i will mention is that i had no vibration with stock TE wheels and HT Duelers. Now i am running 265/70 17 BFG Rugged Terrains with 17x8 ATX Mojaves. When i first picked up the 4R all was well until i hit the freeway then bamn! @62-68 lots of vibration. Back to Big Brand Tire, vibration confirmed by tech. He balanced them again on road force balancer using cone not lug adapter. He also told me that the center cap that comes with Mojave wheels acts as a hub centric ring. Yikes! He has offered to balance them all again. This time i am going to request lug adapter not cone, and ask that the center caps be left off so they arent fighting the center of the lugs. We'll see!

Thanks, keep us updated.

My thoughts..

Regardless of the friggin balancing why cant these things handle a wheel that isn't dead nuts perfect? If I get a rock in the wheel or mud on the rims is it going to flip out again?

 

[eyerunner]

update….

I decided to go to a different shop that has a reputation for great alignments, they jacked the '12 4R TE up just to check that everything was tight before putting it on the alignment rack. Asked me to come take a look, torn CV boots with white silicone grease smeared on each side to plug. WOW. Told Big Brand Tire that they tore my CV boots when they installed ToyTec front spacers. Had Toyota dealer fix ($547). Big Brand will reimburse me. Asked BB to remove ATX Mojaves because they are lug centric but also use the center cap as a hub centric ring (108 -> 106). But that makes no sense to me. Why would you want a wheel to fight against itself lugs VS hub? So BB took the 265/70 BFG Rugged Terrains off, and put them on the stock OEM TE wheels. Vibration better but still there, BB re-aligned also. So the BB manager and I talked (and laughed a little) and decided to go back to the OEM 265/70 HT Duelers and stock wheels. Vibration gone and smooth as glass. I went back today, they ordered in a set of 4 new 265/70 BFG Rugged Terrains and mounted them on the ATX Mojaves WITHOUT center caps. I believe he also did a lug centric road force balance rather than hub (cone) centered balance. Took it on the fwy and it was almost dangerous. By 50-55 mph the steering wheel was shaking violently - death wobble! Limped back to BB, the mgr kept the 4R and tomorrow he is going to mount the oem 265/70 HT Duelers on the ATX Mojaves. The battle rages on…. wow

 

[Rob_G]

I had the steering wheel vibration on my 2008 FJ and it was not always consistent. I had the tires balanced and that made it worse. A second balance attempt and it got back to about the way it was before. My 2010 TE was good and didn't have the vibration issue at all. Now I have a 2012 TE, but I have not checked it yet.

Rob

 

[eyerunner]

Had alignment done again and caster set to +4.1, I asked them to push it to as close to 4.0 as they could and I guess they went past it a bit, do you guys think 4.1 is ok? 4R drives great now!

 

[gadgetguy1288]

I plan on taking my SR5 to the dealer as soon as I can as I have noticed the same vibration intermittently around 57-65. Problem is that I may have to go a different dealer, as I'm leaving tomorrow to go to a Training School in Little Rock, so I guess I'll have to put up with it until I get there.

 

[NoVa4R]

Just picked up an 2013 SR5 last Saturday. Noticed a bad steering wheel shake on my third day of driving, still under 100 on the OD. Same as others, right around 60-65. I've noticed it two other times since then. I took it back to the dealer for a roadforce balance and it's been okay so far, keeping fingers crossed. Dealer said he's had other 4runners come back with the same issue. What's odd to me is the intermittent nature of the issue. I mean if it was balance issue, wouldn't it always shake at 60-65?

 

[Jtraskell]

Generally yes, but air temp, length of time vehicle has been idle without being driven, tire pressure, all can have an effect. You might feel a strong shake in the AM going to work when the tires have been sitting still all night and the temps are lower. Then, when going home, the shake is either less or non existent due to usage during the AM (and then being parked at a different tire spot all day) , air temp being higher etc. etc.

Be safe.

 

[tacobill]

My 2012 SR5 (Dunlops) has it intermittently, and it's not a severe shake, but annoying at times. Probably due to 2 or more tires being perfectly slightly out of balance at the same time.

Had it aligned when I put the Bilsteins on (3.5 caster) and the problem has gotten no better or no worse.

 

[Jokulsarlon]

Strange Steering Vibration

I have not posted any updates on my 2011 Trail for about a year. When I bought it in August 2011 I noticed an intermittent shake in the steering wheel between 60 and 65 MPH when driving it home from the dealer. Too make a really long story short, the dealer ended up replacing the entire steering rack, recalibrating the sensors twice, then replaced all Dunlops with Michelin Latitudes. I now have almost 15,000 miles on my Trail, and the intermittent shake has not appeared. However, I still get this really strange vibration feel in the steering wheel only during turning at speeds > 50MPH. Its like a pulsation, and it depends on the road type and temperature. Its not really noticable at temperatures < 20 F (I live in Minnesota). Everyone thinks I'm crazy, though my friend drove my Trail and could feel the pulsation. So this is still happening on my Trail, and the dealer has yet to figure it out. Has anyone else noticed a pulsation in the steering wheel during turning?