Speed Wobble with SR5 and REVO2s

D

DavidPapke

New member
I get it at highway speeds (55-65, mostly). I put the Revos on so soon after purchase, I can't tell how much is the tire (or an AT tire, generally), and how much is just the bouncy SR5 suspension on an imperfect highway.

I took it to Costco twice (good and talented guys where I am), but no real improvement. Then, I had my local Toyota dealership take a look as they had the Hunter machine and something else (new Johnson machine, I think).

It was much improved, but still not completely gone, I think. They said they will put other tires and wheels on for a test drive to isolate the problem and make sure it's not a vehicle warranty issue (i.e. suspension, axles, etc.).

I will probably go drive another stock SR5 to compare.

Any other experiences like mine out there...?

DP
 
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What do you mean by speed wobble? Is the truch floating? Or is it like an unbalanced tire where the steering wheel shakes. Do you experience this on a smooth surface or a grooved surface. I absolutely love the revo and was going to put them on mine to elimate a floating problem that I am experiencing on groved concrete highways.
 
fraggy said:
What do you mean by speed wobble? Is the truch floating? Or is it like an unbalanced tire where the steering wheel shakes. Do you experience this on a smooth surface or a grooved surface. I absolutely love the revo and was going to put them on mine to elimate a floating problem that I am experiencing on groved concrete highways.
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Yes, like an unbalanced tire. The problem is that they have been balanced 4 times and I still feel a slight wheel shake. Smooth pavement is hard to come by at that speed, so I'm not sure about the root cause (my highway has a lot of seams, so I wonder if I'm getting into some kind of vibrating rhythm...).

I love the Revo2 for a lot of reasons, but I do wonder if the AT tread is accentuating a tendency to run less smoothly in certain situations.

As far as floating, I think the steering is pretty numb and the vehicle does not track well as a rule; however, tracking did improve with the Revo2s.

DP
 
DavidPapke said:
Yes, like an unbalanced tire. The problem is that they have been balanced 4 times and I still feel a slight wheel shake. Smooth pavement is hard to come by at that speed, so I'm not sure about the root cause (my highway has a lot of seams, so I wonder if I'm getting into some kind of vibrating rhythm...).

I love the Revo2 for a lot of reasons, but I do wonder if the AT tread is accentuating a tendency to run less smoothly in certain situations.

As far as floating, I think the steering is pretty numb and the vehicle does not track well as a rule; however, tracking did improve with the Revo2s.

DP
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I have Revo2s on mine and have not had this issue with them. But, I have had the problem on other vehicles. You might ask the tire shop to "index" the tires. Sometimes, the tire is slightly out of round, or simply heavier on one side. Rims are also sometimes not perfectly true. When the imperfections are aligned, it can multiply the effect.

That's one reason you sometimes see a huge amount of balancing weight on a rim. If you index it, much less balancing weight should be required in most cases.

Indexing the tire is basically deflating and rotating it on the rim (I think 180 degrees). They then re-balance them.

The other possibility is you have a bad cord in one of the tires. But, I doubt that's the case.
 
I had a long chat about my frustration with this issue when I met my service manager for the first time. I told him the main reason I came to Toyota was that his shop had one of the local iterations of the fabled Hunter machine to force balance the tires.

He told me they also had a machine that would do what you are talking about (i.e. analyze the overall fit of the tire on the wheel and suggest a remount). For all I know, the service tech simply put the magnets in different places and none of this happened. Or, maybe, all of it happened in some kind of high-tech way.

Yes, it got better, but it's not gone. I kinda hate the idea of knowing it's there in the background for the next 40K miles because I've run out of ideas or out of willingness to keep pushing to get it resolved, but I don't know what else to try...
 
DavidPapke said:
I had a long chat about my frustration with this issue when I met my service manager for the first time. I told him the main reason I came to Toyota was that his shop had one of the local iterations of the fabled Hunter machine to force balance the tires.

He told me they also had a machine that would do what you are talking about (i.e. analyze the overall fit of the tire on the wheel and suggest a remount). For all I know, the service tech simply put the magnets in different places and none of this happened. Or, maybe, all of it happened in some kind of high-tech way.

Yes, it got better, but it's not gone. I kinda hate the idea of knowing it's there in the background for the next 40K miles because I've run out of ideas or out of willingness to keep pushing to get it resolved, but I don't know what else to try...
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They really don't need a high tech machine. A good tire guy could probably get it right indexing once or twice.

Another option might be to switch rims/tires. I 've never had to go that far.

If you've indexed and the vibration is still there, I would try to ID which tire is causing it and ask for a replacement.

My Titan had a chronic vibration like yours. It drove me nuts. It turned out to be a chassis dynamic that occurs in all of them (or at least most). I don't think the T4R has that kind of problem.

I think you'll figure it out. Keep the folks you bought the tires from on speed dial and let them know you don't want to drive 40k miles like this.
 
I had a similar problem when I had my Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armors mounted, when they were first installed I had a bad vibration and steering wheel shake above 55 MPH. I took my 4R to another store within the same chain, they told me the tires had not been balanced correctly when installed and that one of my tires had a slightly heavy spot but would be ok. Left there and went for a drive on the highway, still had a vibration but it was coming from the rear instead of the front. I took the vehicle home, got out my torque wrench and started checking my lug nuts. Out of the 24 lug nuts, only three or four were torqued to spec. I loosened all my lug nuts, jacked the 4R up and tightened them all in a crossing pattern. As I was torquing the right front, one of the studs broke and one stretched until I was confident it would break. I replaced all my studs, torqued the lug nuts and my vibration is gone. One other thing I found right after they were mounted was the Installer put 44 PSI in all of the tires, made for a very rough ride and wandered all over the road every time I hit a bump. I set the pressure on all four at 32 and not only does it track straight but the ride is great now. I have no idea if any of these problems is what you are experiencing but just wanted to give you some idea of what I did to resolve my vibration problem.
 
TKO88 said:
I had a similar problem when I had my Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armors mounted, when they were first installed I had a bad vibration and steering wheel shake above 55 MPH. I took my 4R to another store within the same chain, they told me the tires had not been balanced correctly when installed and that one of my tires had a slightly heavy spot but would be ok. Left there and went for a drive on the highway, still had a vibration but it was coming from the rear instead of the front. I took the vehicle home, got out my torque wrench and started checking my lug nuts. Out of the 24 lug nuts, only three or four were torqued to spec. I loosened all my lug nuts, jacked the 4R up and tightened them all in a crossing pattern. As I was torquing the right front, one of the studs broke and one stretched until I was confident it would break. I replaced all my studs, torqued the lug nuts and my vibration is gone. One other thing I found right after they were mounted was the Installer put 44 PSI in all of the tires, made for a very rough ride and wandered all over the road every time I hit a bump. I set the pressure on all four at 32 and not only does it track straight but the ride is great now. I have no idea if any of these problems is what you are experiencing but just wanted to give you some idea of what I did to resolve my vibration problem.
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Good story. The Toyota service manager offered on his own that it could all be a warranty issue, so it does make sense to keep pushing it with them since they have the best equipment (if that really matters) and the most to gain in getting the problem resolved...

Thanks.
 
Certain brands of tires have a yellow dot on the sidewall. (I'm not sure if your Bridgestone Revos have this) Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that dot supposed to be aligned with the valve stem ? Is this what you mean by "indexing" ? Just curious.
 
Gstick said:
Certain brands of tires have a yellow dot on the sidewall. (I'm not sure if your Bridgestone Revos have this) Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that dot supposed to be aligned with the valve stem ? Is this what you mean by "indexing" ? Just curious.
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I've never been told what the yellow dot was for. I think I've seen them (I'll go look at mine, since they're new.

I was told about indexing by a tire vendor. If they can't balance it no matter what they do, they will take the tire off the rim, rotate the tire and re-mount it on the rim. So, if it had a yellow dot, it would now be on the other side of the rim from the stem. They then rebalance the tire.

If it takes an unusual amount of weight to balance a tire, indexing is probably something to try. I've noticed this a couple of times over the years and asked the tire tech to index. Most of the time, after indexing, there were much fewer weights on the wheels.

I drive a LOT of highway miles (already have 10k miles on my T4R). So, I'm hypersensitive to alignment and vibration. It drives me nuts when things aren't right.
 
Gstick said:
Certain brands of tires have a yellow dot on the sidewall. (I'm not sure if your Bridgestone Revos have this) Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that dot supposed to be aligned with the valve stem ? Is this what you mean by "indexing" ? Just curious.
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No yellow dots. If they are stickers, they could have come off, or were removed by the tech when they were mounted.
 
Update 2/7/11

Worked with Firestone to replace REVO2s with a brand new set - They work great and no more wobble. Highly recommended...

DP
 
DavidPapke said:
Worked with Firestone to replace REVO2s with a brand new set - They work great and no more wobble. Highly recommended...

DP
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Just curious on how your vehicle is handling for you after more time has passed? I am having a similar problem with mine at 65mph I have a shimmy/vibration in the vehicle. What tires did you end up going with?
 
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