Steering wheel vibration Poll

Have/had steering wheel vibration?

  • Total voters
    1,129
Hans Moleman said:
My brand new 2018 T4R has the steering wheel shimmy. I'm not surprised because the Tacoma is sensitive to tire imbalances too.

I'm all too familiar with this problem. When I bought a 2nd gen Tacoma it had the same problem and the dealer couldn't fix it after numerous re-balancing and new set of tires. It was fixed when I took it to a small mom & pop tire shop that had the road force machine & Haweka (finger plate adapter) and knew how to use both together. Even Discount Tire with the road force machine & finger plate adapter couldn't balance correctly until I took it the other shop. Just because a shop has all of the right equipment (i.e Toyota Dealer), it's still no good if the techs don't know what they are doing.

I guess I have to give the dealer a shot with my new T4R. If they can't fix then off to the tire shop I go at my expense :mad:
Click to expand...

I had the independent shop that I always trust check the tire balance on the Hunter road force balancer with the Haweka adapter.

The results were:
1) Road force on all 4 tires were really good, between 8 - 12 lbs of road force.
2) The balance from the factory was perfect. No weights needed to be changed.

The shop thinks the Dunlop AT20 is just a crappy tire and nothing much can be done. They don't think alignment would cause the steering wheel shake.

Right now is very minor. I'm afraid if I let the dealer try to rebalance that might make it worse.

Doesn't seem like much can be done except for getting new tires.
 
It seems to do it for the first 5 miles between 60-65 mph. It seems to clear up after that.

Also my steering wheel never shimmied when the dealer overflated the tires to 55psi. It only started when I lowered the pressure to 32 psi.

Could my situation be flat spots after sitting overnight? When the dealer over inflated the tires maybe it was not getting flat spots?
 
2016 TE and still have issues after removing OEM wheels and tires. Started with Black Rhino Warlords and Dueler AT Revo 2s. Replaced 3 of the tires that were supposedly out of spec. After about 13 visits to 4 different shops, it finally seemed like it was resolved until the next rotation and it was beyond awful. Dealer got it a little better but not great. Discount Tire was awesome in offering to replace tires again after all this time, but I ordered SCS Ray 10s in hope that the Black Rhino just wasn't going to do well. I mean, 7 different tires and no improvement so it has to be wheels right? Well, not much better with the Ray 10s. Once I wear these tires down I'm going to go back to the Warlords and sell the Ray 10s and find a better tire.
 
Mine isnt terrible, but noticable enough that the wife notices it when driving. Road condition has a huge effect on this. On very clean pavement the shimmy is essentially gone. Lifted on bilsteins with KO2 275s
 
Hans Moleman said:
It seems to do it for the first 5 miles between 60-65 mph. It seems to clear up after that.

Also my steering wheel never shimmied when the dealer overflated the tires to 55psi. It only started when I lowered the pressure to 32 psi.

Could my situation be flat spots after sitting overnight? When the dealer over inflated the tires maybe it was not getting flat spots?
Click to expand...

I have had similar experience with more tire pressure and it slightly going away over time. I will note that I swapped out my suspension last week for TRD pro set up and with the same wheels on the same corners the vibration is much less. not sure how this is the case, but it will take win where I can get it.
 
Finally fixed.

I put BF Goodrich 275/70/17 KO2s on my 2018 TRD Offroad and felt a wobble initially. I had them rebalance, then promptly installed a 3" OME suspension and had a fresh realignment, only to find the wobble much more pronounced. I finally called Discount to inquire about swapping them out for the 285s that come in a C rating and they asked me to come down for a much more extensive balancing, e.g. Road Force etc...I have to say, the difference is night and day. They ended up having to reinstall one of the tires on the wheel to get it within spec, but that seems to have cured the wobble.
 
cgrigsby79 said:
I put BF Goodrich 275/70/17 KO2s on my 2018 TRD Offroad and felt a wobble initially. I had them rebalance, then promptly installed a 3" OME suspension and had a fresh realignment, only to find the wobble much more pronounced. I finally called Discount to inquire about swapping them out for the 285s that come in a C rating and they asked me to come down for a much more extensive balancing, e.g. Road Force etc...I have to say, the difference is night and day. They ended up having to reinstall one of the tires on the wheel to get it within spec, but that seems to have cured the wobble.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the moral of the story is, if you take your time and use the "right" tools, you get a much better result.

Makes you wish they would do that every time instead of chasing higher profits.
 
916T4R said:
Sounds like the moral of the story is, if you take your time and use the "right" tools, you get a much better result.

Makes you wish they would do that every time instead of chasing higher profits.
Click to expand...

No kidding! Honestly, I'm shocked at how these tires could have been "balanced" twice already but only when I threatened to take them back per their satisfaction guarantee did they tell me to bring them in so they could balance them for real...WTF?

On a positive note, whatever they did via the "road force balance", it completely solved the steering wobble and rough ride which I had mistakenly attributed to the E rating of the new tires.

I realize I'm only one case in a large sample size, but I would strongly encourage any one who has this steering wobble to make damn sure their tires are properly balanced before they chalk it up to a manufacturing flaw. In my case, the third time was the charm.
 
Dealer round 4...

Scheduled to test drive my 4Runner with the shop manager tomorrow morning. This will have been my 4th time to a dealer for the same problem. Shimmy felt in sweating wheel, but more pronounced in the floor board. Its done it since day 1 of purchase, 2018 ORP. Hoping they will finally agree to try a different set of tires.
 
I sometimes get a little shimmy/vibration out of the steering wheel, but nothing I can feel in the vehicle or handling and hasn't affected the driveability-I only noticed it after reading this thread. It usually depends on where I"m driving and goes away quickly. For what is worth, I had a similar thing with my Truck and that had an IFS front and I ran 34" Terra Grapplers.
 
Test drove a 2018 TRD OR Prem yesterday with 40 miles on the odo. Steering wheel shimmy at interstate speed. Could also see it on the hood. Totally shocking. This is not what I'm looking for, but just to familiarize myself with the new current. Might get a base TRD OR but will likely keep my 4th gen longer. I'm reluctant to change.

Stephen
 
2017 ORE w/KDSS (13k mi) - OME 3” lift w/Icon UCAs holding SCS wheels coated in 275 KO2s.

Get shimmy on Highway. No resolution. Will take to trusted shop for a second balance (rather than dealer).
 
Dealer worked my mine and they said the factory tire balance was off and the alignment toe was out of spec.

So they did an alignment and road force balance. The tried to do a regular balance at first but the vibration got worse.

While I can't say the steering wheel shake is complete gone, it is a lot less. Just a slight wiggle now depending on the road surface. But it still goes away after driving 10 miles or so on the freeway so all signs point to the crap tires flat spotting over night.

However I used to feel a buzzing sensation on the steering wheel but now it's gone after the road force balance and alignment.

I don't want to mess with it anymore because it can worse again.
 
Hans Moleman said:
Dealer worked my mine and they said the factory tire balance was off and the alignment toe was out of spec.

So they did an alignment and road force balance. The tried to do a regular balance at first but the vibration got worse.

While I can't say the steering wheel shake is complete gone, it is a lot less. Just a slight wiggle now depending on the road surface. But it still goes away after driving 10 miles or so on the freeway so all signs point to the crap tires flat spotting over night.

However I used to feel a buzzing sensation on the steering wheel but now it's gone after the road force balance and alignment.

I don't want to mess with it anymore because it can worse again.
Click to expand...


I had the trd pro suspension installed today. The shop mentioned the stock alignment was horrible! After installation and alignment I have noticed little to no shake in the steering wheel so far but will need to drive it a tad more. I would recommend alignment and balance of wheels
 
When you get the XP Predator package with the TRD wheels, do they balance the wheels/tires at the Port or at the dealership that sells the cars? And where is the PORT located at? And what about the original wheels/tires that came with the 4 runner. Do those come with the car you buy in a box or does the dealership just sell them away.
 
Axix23 said:
When you get the XP Predator package with the TRD wheels, do they balance the wheels/tires at the Port or at the dealership that sells the cars? And where is the PORT located at? And what about the original wheels/tires that came with the 4 runner. Do those come with the car you buy in a box or does the dealership just sell them away.
Click to expand...

When people say “shimmy”, is it specifically in the steering wheel, or is it felt elsewhere too?
 
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