New Duratrac's slight vibration

How's your alignment? I know your tires are fairly new but poor alignment can cause premature tire wear which in turn can can lead to cupped tires.

 

I prefer to wear my seat belt when drinking and driving so I use my crack lighter.

 

So is everyone saying any wheel shake at all is not normal?

 

Alignment is great as far as I can tell

 

If you only get wheel shake over a specific stretch of the highway, forget about it. If you get the shake at that speed regardless of surface, you can attempt to get the tires rebalanced at a shop with better equipment, though it may or may not improve much.

 

Will the slight wheel shake cause any problems, other than the obvious shaky wheel?

 

Might wear some steering linkage a little early, but I think bumps and turning the wheels under slow/no movement would be worse. Interested in this now.

 

You have the same tire I had, you get wheel shake because the out of round tire is in the front. - if you move it to the rear you will get a bounce and see you bed shake.

Trust me, you either get a new set and the 2 front replaced or ditch them while you can. I went through the same for almost 6 month and ended up returning them (which cured all vibs)

 

Every thread I read about wheel shake with a Tacoma the answer has always been, "Road Force Balance". Surprised nobody has brought it up yet.

EDIT: Nevermind @KenLyns did indeed ask about this!

 

I mentioned it.

OP, not to re hash what's already been said. But I bet, the problem is simple, for starters it's a heavier tire, which most will agree including guys at tire shops, are harder to balance. Plus I think another thing to keep in mind is, the compound itself and tread design, the potential for maybe different densities in the compound could be part of it (maybe not completely consistent). Maybe slightly out of round, which when heavier would amplify the balance issues just do to extra weight itself.

Over the past 10 months, I've had Duratracs Load D (About two weeks), then Cooper ST MAxx Load D (about two months), Each gave me significant shake in front and rear, my bed literally was bouncing and steering wheel shaking... I then went to the NEW BFG KO2s Load C, It continued to shake... Finally after replacing TWO of the NEW KO2s the shake went away. So out of 4 brand new BFG KO2s 2 were bad.. I watched them spin on the road force machine, and you could visually see them out on round.

Thru out the whole time, I was at the tire shop A LOT, getting them road forced.. Took it to Toyota had them check alignment (dead on) the whole 9, also had brand new rotors put on and checked for trueness.. In fact after having the shake, I had the front driver axle replaced bc it had play in it.. I don't know for sure if any of the balance issues with all the tire caused it or not.

So my advice is, if this shake is bothering you enough to start a thread over.. I'd consider or do-1. Take it back, have them road force, if it fixes the problem then returns soon, I'd then 2. Look into getting some different tires and tell them you're not satisfied ( idk what shop you went to, but some have a return policy, which would allow you to return them and get another set, such as Discount).

If you're really not into off roading and mainly do on road driving.. I personally would recommend you go with a P-rated tire (which isn't a "heavy duty" tire, not meant for extreme beatings off road, or heavy loads etc).. I had a set of P-Rated General Grabber AT2's (Real similar tread design to BFG ATs, also performed well in different conditions) They rode really nice (kinda Cadillaced) also very quite, I got about 45k out of them, they came with a 50k I believe warranty so I got some money back towards the next set.

 

Here's a pic of one of the bad KO2's, as you can see it was chunking on one side of the tread and not wearing normal or properly.. It "may" have had a couple thousand miles on it, if that. So something wasn't right.

 

Wow. Bad tire perhaps?

 

Thanks for the great info. I do not have significant shake so I think I will live with it for now.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it must've been, that's actually the one you could see wobbling on the road force balancer.

You're welcome.. At least you have some things to keep in mind.. But perhaps just a quick balance could eliminate what you do have. Good luck.