Yet another 4Runner wheel balance problem...

pointman said:
According to the Toyota dealer the vehicle requires; i.)Road Force Balancing ii.) "cone" attachment on balancing machine iii.) torqued to spec as over tightening will cause a shimmy.
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In my case, as detailed above, the steering wheel shimmy only occurs when one particular wheel is on the front of the vehicle.

Now that it has been moved to the back, the steering wheel shimmy is gone. Replaced by some occasional vibrations I feel in the driver's seat.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to a tire shop. Hopefully we'll determine once and for all if the rim and/or tire is OOR or otherwise defective.
 
702_SR5 said:
In my case, as detailed above, the steering wheel shimmy only occurs when one particular wheel is on the front of the vehicle.

Now that it has been moved to the back, the steering wheel shimmy is gone. Replaced by some occasional vibrations I feel in the driver's seat.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to a tire shop. Hopefully we'll determine once and for all if the rim and/or tire is OOR or otherwise defective.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it's the wheel to me based on your troubleshooting. Obviously, swapping tires on wheels as part of the rotation process in order to always keep that wheel in back will get expensive. If the dealership or someone else doesn't have the means to check the wheel for defects and replace for free if it is defective, I would just get a used SR5 wheel off Craigslist if you're comfortable with that. I did a quick search on LV craigslist based on your profile saying Las Vegas. Looks like this guy / gal is selling a set of 4 for $100:

Toyota aluminum wheel + tire sets - auto wheels & tires - by owner -...

Don't know if they'd part with just one or if the price is worth getting all four and having spares or if the seller is even close to you, but figured it was worth the suggestion. $100 would be worth it to me to just be done with the hassle and not have to spend the continued time on the issue anymore.

[EDIT] Just realized those wheels are in Prescott, AZ even though I was searching the LV craigslist. Probably not worth the distance to pursue, but I would recommend tracking down a used SR5 wheel somehow, and just biting the bullet and buying it, and swapping out with your current problem wheel if the dealer won't do it for free.
 
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702_SR5 said:
In my case, as detailed above, the steering wheel shimmy only occurs when one particular wheel is on the front of the vehicle.

Now that it has been moved to the back, the steering wheel shimmy is gone. Replaced by some occasional vibrations I feel in the driver's seat.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to a tire shop. Hopefully we'll determine once and for all if the rim and/or tire is OOR or otherwise defective.
Click to expand...

That stinks. Its my fear, hence why I put off getting new wheels. Hopefully you get it sorted. Let us know what the problem was.
 
Update: I did end up replacing one of the rims, got a stock rim at a good price. Thrown into the mix, it did seem to help a little.

Over time, the steering wheel shaking calmed down to the point it hardly existed. However, the tires wore down to the point where I decided to replace them.

I opted for P-rated Falken Wildpeak AT's, hoping the lighter, softer tires would yield fewer problems.

Instead, the steering wheel shake came back. I returned to the shop and asked them to re-balance and road force/force match to get the road force measurements as low as possible. But after that, the steering wheel shake is even worse.

Their position, not surprisingly, is that there's a problem with the vehicle, not the tires or their work. (But why did the situation get even worse after they messed with the tires the second time??)

I've owned and driven a large variety of vehicles in my life, and never experienced or even heard of problems like this.
 
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Been through this problem. If you wear in the tires driving through the shake, it gets real hard to get rid of. You either replace the tires, or do your best road force balance and drive them to their end of life and get new. Ours got feathered or sawtooth wear from the shakes. Part of the problem was that my wife just ignored and drove through the shakes which were annoying enough to me as a passenger to push me to get the road force balancing done. It did clean it up some but the burned in feathered wear wouldn’t allow for total clean up. Fortunately we had 15K miles left on the tires, so new ones were coming up. All this experience was on Cooper AT3s. The new set of Copper AT3s have been a joy to drive. The guys at the tire shop just cringed when I asked for road force balancing and they saw that it was a Toyota.
 
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CutthroatSlam said:
Been through this problem. If you wear in the tires driving through the shake, it gets real hard to get rid of. You either replace the tires, or do your best road force balance and drive them to their end of life and get new.
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I just got brand new tires. :shrug:

On a 2.5 year old vehicle with this price tag (not to mention the Toyota quality hype), highway-speed ride quality issues are unacceptable. I never had these problems on my Rubicon. Or my Xterras. Or any other vehicle I've owned, including my '07 4Runner. :ak472:

Much of the time on the old set (KO2's), the ride was okay. The problems appeared after rotations. Leading to multiple balance/road force attempts, sometimes at different shops, to get the ride to an acceptable level. That's why I stopped rotating them, but they were wearing out and had to go.
 
702_SR5 said:
I just got brand new tires. :shrug:

On a 2.5 year old vehicle with this price tag (not to mention the Toyota quality hype), highway-speed ride quality issues are unacceptable. I never had these problems on my Rubicon. Or my Xterras. Or any other vehicle I've owned, including my '07 4Runner. :ak472:

Much of the time on the old set (KO2's), the ride was okay. The problems appeared after rotations. Leading to multiple balance/road force attempts, sometimes at different shops, to get the ride to an acceptable level. That's why I stopped rotating them, but they were wearing out and had to go.
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We have over 250K miles on a 2014 SR5. I’d say that half of those miles we had some sort of wheel shake at 60 mph. Been through everything and the only thing that corrected it was road force balancing. I realize you’re not happy, but I and many others are telling you the same thing to correct it and I have a shit load more miles than your grocery hauling miles. You can either listen to experience or continue your whining.
 
CutthroatSlam said:
... The guys at the tire shop just cringed when I asked for road force balancing and they saw that it was a Toyota.
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It is not Toyota in it’s entirety more so the 4Runner and GX have sensitivity to road force generally anything above about 12-14 lbs (not excessive and actual within limits for most suvs and trucks) and you can have a vibration. Put tires with the same road force measurements, sometimes much more on something like a Camry or ES and you might not notice a thing. The trickiest thing with road force is the initial balance the beads are not necessarily seated in entirely and the numbers can and do change pertaining to road force after it is driven.


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CutthroatSlam said:
... Been through everything and the only thing that corrected it was road force balancing. I realize you’re not happy, but I and many others are telling you the same thing to correct it and I have a shit load more miles than your grocery hauling miles. You can either listen to experience or continue your whining.
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Grocery hauling miles, LOL.

The new set of tires was road forced when installed on March 24. The steering wheel shook at highway speed. They road forced them again on April 8, this time moving two of them on the rim. Now the steering wheel shakes worse at highway speed.

The old set was road forced more times than I care to count.

So tell me again that all I need to do is go in and have the tires road forced.

I don't know your history, but this isn't my first vehicle, not even my first 4Runner. I've put many miles (and overseas km's) on a variety of vehicles I've owned or otherwise driven. I've never encountered this problem with any of the others. I'd never heard of "road force" before I owned this vehicle.
 
702_SR5 said:
I just got brand new tires. :shrug:

On a 2.5 year old vehicle with this price tag (not to mention the Toyota quality hype), highway-speed ride quality issues are unacceptable. I never had these problems on my Rubicon. Or my Xterras. Or any other vehicle I've owned, including my '07 4Runner. :ak472:

Much of the time on the old set (KO2's), the ride was okay. The problems appeared after rotations. Leading to multiple balance/road force attempts, sometimes at different shops, to get the ride to an acceptable level. That's why I stopped rotating them, but they were wearing out and had to go.
Click to expand...

Just a thought, but I would take them back to the tire shop and swap them for Toyo OC AT3's. Stock size E load is fairly light at 48 lbs compared to your KO2 and Wildpeaks. Too many people seem to have balance issues with Wildpeaks.
 
702_SR5 said:
People have balance issues with lots of different tires, as I found out on this forum. :frusty:

Lots of people who posted here love their Falkens:

Ready to move on from KO2's...but to what?
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At this point it's probably some other issue going on with your truck, but you can't eliminate tires as the source of the problem since so many others have had recent balance issues with Wildpeaks in particular (on this forum and others). If you switch to Toyos (or some other brand) and the problem persists, you'll at least know it's not the tires.
 
702_SR5 said:
Grocery hauling miles, LOL.

The new set of tires was road forced when installed on March 24. The steering wheel shook at highway speed. They road forced them again on April 8, this time moving two of them on the rim. Now the steering wheel shakes worse at highway speed.

The old set was road forced more times than I care to count.

So tell me again that all I need to do is go in and have the tires road forced.

I don't know your history, but this isn't my first vehicle, not even my first 4Runner. I've put many miles (and overseas km's) on a variety of vehicles I've owned or otherwise driven. I've never encountered this problem with any of the others. I'd never heard of "road force" before I owned this vehicle.
Click to expand...

OK you need to redo the entire front end: upper and lower control arm bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, pitman arm, sway bar bushings, replace brake rotors, then align it. I’m sure I missed something. If it still shakes, then dump the car because it’s a lemon.
 
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CutthroatSlam said:
OK you need to redo the entire front end: upper and lower control arm bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, pitman arm, sway bar bushings, replace brake rotors, then align it. I’m sure I missed something. If it still shakes, then dump the car because it’s a lemon.
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You forgot changing out the gearing... seriously. I have dealt with this issue through multiple tires and sizes. Re-geared about a month ago and no steering vibration at any speed at all - gone. Coincidence? Who knows, but I have seen countless posts on steering vibrations from every tire and every size and I'm convinced that 97% of these issues has nothing do to with tires..
 
alphabeast said:
You forgot changing out the gearing... seriously. I have dealt with this issue through multiple tires and sizes. Re-geared about a month ago and no steering vibration at any speed at all - gone. Coincidence? Who knows, but I have seen countless posts on steering vibrations from every tire and every size and I'm convinced that 97% of these issues has nothing do to with tires..
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Your solution is the first time I've heard of that.

I like the balance bead solution. There are many offerings in that product space. Cheap and definitely worth a try.

Given the miles we've put on our 4Runner and the number of tires and all the things we did to try and address this, only to have a good road force balancing correct it at a late stage in the vehicle's life, I would avoid throwing expensive parts at it I did all sorts of tests on the suspension and front end, thinking it was worn, but it was not. I've just come to the conclusion that these vehicles are hyper sensitive to out of round tires and the quality of today's tires is piss poor.
 
702_SR5 said:
People have balance issues with lots of different tires, as I found out on this forum. :frusty:

Lots of people who posted here love their Falkens:

Ready to move on from KO2's...but to what?
Click to expand...

Try one more thing before you start overhauling suspension like someone was suggesting...

Take it to a shop that can not only road force balance, but a shop that also uses an adapter plate. This performs a lug-centric balance rather than hub centric because toyota wheels are lug centric. Lastly, some hunter machines have a "Smart Weight" setting, which needs to be turned off.

My personal experience is this: road force was perfect and balance looked perfect but I got the shakes no matter what. Once the "smart weight" setting/function was turned off and wheels rebalanced, no more shakes. This has been done twice now and it works.
 
BTW if you have an extra snowflake rim, I’ll take it. $50 and I’ll pick it up when we pass through Vegas on May 1st on our way down from Montana.
 
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I had a shimmy with my ko2, then I went to the ridge grappler and also had a shimmy. I broke the wheels loose and jacked the 4runner up. I tightened all 4 wheels down to 90ft pounds, off the ground, and lowered it down, drove it and the shimmy was gone. I had 50k on my ko2 so it was time to replace, but looking back I wish I had tried this method to see if that was the issue.
 
CutthroatSlam said:
OK you need to redo the entire front end: upper and lower control arm bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, pitman arm, sway bar bushings, replace brake rotors, then align it. I’m sure I missed something. If it still shakes, then dump the car because it’s a lemon.
Click to expand...

Seems you got upset when your pet solution (road forcing) didn't work for me!

I wonder what you'll say about this development? https://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-gen-t4rs/297933-wheel-balance-problems-static-balance-helped-lot.html#post3644209
 
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