What are your thoughts on this?

[cbielat]

I went in to the dealer for an oil change and tire rotation on my way in to the office yesterday. I am fed up with going to Toyota dealers to have service done but this time it just worked out as one is near my office. Anyhow. I got my truck back and down the road I reach 55 mph. My wheel starts shaking like a banshee. I've had my tires rotated every 5k miles and this had never happened. I now have 59k on the truck. The tires still have a good amount of life left in them with decent tread(Duratracs). I just never had the wobble from the steering wheel. I know that an alignment should help but the service desk jockey said that I need new tires. I thought this was stretching it because the tires are still in good shape. There is some signs of wear on the very outer lugs. I think I'm just in need of another alignment. Does this sound right?

 

[Canazes9]

I went in to the dealer for an oil change and tire rotation on my way in to the office yesterday. I am fed up with going to Toyota dealers to have service done but this time it just worked out as one is near my office. Anyhow. I got my truck back and down the road I reach 55 mph. My wheel starts shaking like a banshee. I've had my tires rotated every 5k miles and this had never happened. I now have 59k on the truck. The tires still have a good amount of life left in them with decent tread(Duratracs). I just never had the wobble from the steering wheel. I know that an alignment should help but the service desk jockey said that I need new tires. I thought this was stretching it because the tires are still in good shape. There is some signs of wear on the very outer lugs. I think I'm just in need of another alignment. Does this sound right?

No, that doesn't sound like alignment. It sounds like a balance issue. Possibly they knocked a wheel weight off when they did the rotation (you might even be able to see where it was by checking the rim for a clean spot profile).

David

 

[KidVermicious]

You probably had a tire out of balance on the rear of the truck and it got rotated to the front, which is causing the steering wheel shake. Balancing your tires should correct it.

The wear on your tires, what do you mean by outer lugs? If you're getting excessive wear on both edges of the tire, you're running too low a tire pressure. If it's just on the outside edge, you need an alignment.

 

[cbielat]

I had my wheels rebalanced about a month and a half ago. I'll have to check again. By wear, I mean the outer edge of the lugs have begun to round off recently. I believe this to be the ill effect of when I had another shop replace my upper control arm bushings. They told me that it didn't need an alignment but I was hard pressed to believe that. This is why I thought it to be an alignment issue.