Steering Wheel Vibration after a Lift and Alignment

[Southpaw07]

I recently had my 2017 TRD ORP lifted on Bilstein 5100/5160 and also added BF Goodrich K02 tires (285/70/17). I experienced some steering wheel vibration around 60 MPH which I expected. I just had an alignment done and expected the vibration to be gone but it’s still there. What should I check next? Any advice appreciated.

 

[Ascole]

I had the 60mph shimmy for the longest time, New tires and an alignment fixed it. Maybe tires aren’t balanced properly?


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[Southpaw07]

I had the 60mph shimmy for the longest time, New tires and an alignment fixed it. Maybe tires aren’t balanced properly?

Yeah, good call. I assumed the tires are balanced properly since it was all recently done. But I guess that doesn’t always mean it was done properly.

 

[Teamoatmealpie]

I have had at least 10-12 sets of BFG's over my life time.

Bought a new set in December, KO2's same as yours. It took 4 different attempts to road force balance them. At appointment #3 they said one tire was way out of round = replaced. Appointment #4 said another tire was out of round = replaced. Spun the other 2 on the rims and put those on the rears.

From day one the steering wheel see-sawed back and forth, way beyond vibration. More like completely unbalanced. First they blamed hub centric Toyota wheels. Later Discount Tire blamed BFG -manufacturing -wasn't so great at making round tires
.
I think the out round tires where above 30 on the road force, think egg shaped. Trip #4 I went back and watched as they road force balanced and asked to see the results.


Kind of concerned what's going to happen on my first rotation.



I guess it was my turn to have bad BFG luck as the stories like this are many.

It's too bad as the KO2's do well in wet and snow, while the KM3's are fantastic offroad, but scary on packed snow/ice.

Get them road force balanced and ask to see results, you want #'s under 10, the lower the better.

 

[rightyouareken]

Yeah, good call. I assumed the tires are balanced properly since it was all recently done. But I guess that doesn’t always mean it was done properly.

No it doesn't. I've had to have multiple sets of wheels/tires rebalanced after the initial balance over the years. A ~60-65MPH steering shimmy on a fairly new vehicle is most likely tire balance or out of round condition. As vehicles age, other things can cause a shimmy at highway speeds such as warped brake rotors, sticky calipers, bad tie rod ends, bad shocks, etc. But if you recently got a set of new tires, that's where I'd start.

 

[fkheath]

KO2 tires are notorious for being hard to balance. That is probably what the problem is.

 

[ahtoxa11]

KO2 tires are notorious for being hard to balance. That is probably what the problem is.

Yeah, they are. Combined with the 4runner’s steering sensitivity, this creates a case where the balance has to be really good, and not just close enough.

I went through this song and dance with my KO2s in the same size. Discount Tire were one of the few shops that had the plate adapter to balance and the guy knew what he was doing. Still, one of the tires was asking for 15oz, which is way out of spec.

BFG warrantied that tire, but not without me having to cover 35% of the cost of a new tire, when the old one had 5k one it (was in the rear).

Where I am some Toyota off-road shops advise against KO2s and won’t mount them because of repeat issues. I kind of get it, and probably won’t get the KO2s again, which is a shame as I like everything else about them, it’s just at rotation time it’s always a roll of the dice whether it’s gonna vibe or not and whether I’m going to do the song and dance again.

 

[mrblah]

i had to get my ko2's balanced 3 or 4 times on my stock trail edition rims and they never could make the vibration go away completely, that is until I bought new rims, and that solved my problem. Not sure if if was new rims, or a new tire shop, but eventually they were able to balance the tires.


So as everyone has mentioned, KO2 are hard to balance.

 

[Mudballz]

Rotation and increase pressures it will work it self out

 

[badattitude]

Yeah, they are. Combined with the 4runner’s steering sensitivity, this creates a case where the balance has to be really good, and not just close enough.

I went through this song and dance with my KO2s in the same size. Discount Tire were one of the few shops that had the plate adapter to balance and the guy knew what he was doing. Still, one of the tires was asking for 15oz, which is way out of spec.

BFG warrantied that tire, but not without me having to cover 35% of the cost of a new tire, when the old one had 5k one it (was in the rear).

Where I am some Toyota off-road shops advise against KO2s and won’t mount them because of repeat issues. I kind of get it, and probably won’t get the KO2s again, which is a shame as I like everything else about them, it’s just at rotation time it’s always a roll of the dice whether it’s gonna vibe or not and whether I’m going to do the song and dance again.

Use the finger plate adapter. At least try it. Its an old TSB.

I had the 60mph BFG shimmy on a third gen. This is TSB fixed it. Fortunately, no shimmy on my 4th or 5th gens.

Adding. If you get a balance issue fixed, do not re=balance just because its free. If you have balanced tries leave them alone.

 

[SilverTEP]

All AT/MT tires are hard to balance, but plenty of people run KO2s on here without issues. When I bought mine I had balance issue (vibration at freeway speeds).

I found a discount tire with a road force balance, and they balanced them out, had no issues after. Also check your PSI, sometimes inexperienced tire techs will set the stock PSI at 32, I found that fronts should be at 38-40 range and backs 36-38 range with chalk test.

 

[sawman1]

I agree with others on BFGs being tough to balance. Was part of the reason I jettisoned mine for Open Country AT3s. I wonder if balancing beads would work. I always thought they were kind of gimmiky until I used them on my '71 Coupe DeVille...and now it rides smooth as glass.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

I'd also throw in to check how they are being balanced if you had a shop do them (you didn't say where you had it done, so just throwing this out there.)

Les Schwab in our area likes to static balance the chunkier truck tires & wheels and we've had customers bring it in for that concern and have to dynamic balance them.

 

[mrblah]

I agree with others on BFGs being tough to balance. Was part of the reason I jettisoned mine for Open Country AT3s. I wonder if balancing beads would work. I always thought they were kind of gimmiky until I used them on my '71 Coupe DeVille...and now it rides smooth as glass.

beads do not work. I tried that too and it also made a mess later on when I changed rims.

 

[Kamalani Mahie]

I recently had my 2017 TRD ORP lifted on Bilstein 5100/5160 and also added BF Goodrich K02 tires (285/70/17). I experienced some steering wheel vibration around 60 MPH which I expected. I just had an alignment done and expected the vibration to be gone but it’s still there. What should I check next? Any advice appreciated.

You probably need a wheel/tire balance and make sure you are running 37-40psi

 

[ahtoxa11]

, I found that fronts should be at 38-40 range and backs 36-38 range with chalk test.

What size tire did you have when you did the chalk test and what load rating -- C or E?

 

[SilverTEP]

What size tire did you have when you did the chalk test and what load rating -- C or E?

Those were 275 in E.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

beads do not work. I tried that too and it also made a mess later on when I changed rims.

What do you mean mess? I have beads in my 35's (bought the wheels and tires pre-installed with sensors and the company I got them from uses beads on 35+ tires), after about 20~25k the balance is getting a bit off on the Toyo RT's and I've been debating if I should throw another pack of beads or go through the trouble of demounting them, cleaning everything out, and then road-forcing them.

 

[Southpaw07]

Wanted to give an update as I seem to have gotten the issue resolved.
Per the recommendation of re-balancing and giving a few places a try, I found that Discount Tire got it right. Although the 60 MPH steering vibration is gone, I’m now noticing a slight clunkiness in the front suspension or steering...almost as if something is loose. From one issue to another

 

[mrblah]

What do you mean mess? I have beads in my 35's (bought the wheels and tires pre-installed with sensors and the company I got them from uses beads on 35+ tires), after about 20~25k the balance is getting a bit off on the Toyo RT's and I've been debating if I should throw another pack of beads or go through the trouble of demounting them, cleaning everything out, and then road-forcing them.

I could never get my tires to balance correctly when I had them in my ko2's, Also the balance was always a little off, depending if the vehicle sat to long, or i would get a weird shimmy for the first few miles, then it would go away, then come back. The balance was never horrible, but it was never fixed either. It was enough to be an annoyance.

One day, I Forgot to tell the tire shop that I had beads in the tires, so when they went to move my tires on to new rims, resulted in a mess on the shop floor....oops my bad.

Went back to standard lead weights on my new rims w/ old tires, and no more balancing issues. Not sure if the balancing issues were due to the tires being hard to balance, or the stupid beads, or changing rims, or a combination of all of the above.