New tires, oscillation at 65mph

Got new tires on my '11 DCSB PreRunner last week. Stock size Michelin LTX M/S2, installed by Discount Tire. At around 65mph, I feel a pronounced oscillation in the steering wheel, beyond just vibration. The steering wheel pulls very quickly between left right left right... but the truck doesn't drift. Happens only at that speed, and is somewhat dependent on road surface. All four are at 35psi.
I made it 60k miles on the original Dunlops, and never saw this before. Last alignment was at 35k. Is this an alignment issue? Tire issue?
Thanks.

 

Could be one bad tire with a manufacturing defect. Rotate front to back and see if it goes away.

 

Bad balancing, or bad tire.

 

Sounds like that /\ go back to Discount and tell them.. Solution find bad tire and replace with new or road force balance if not bad.

 

Could be either. Too much toe out in front will cause darty-ness which sounds a bit like what you are describing. Trammeling is a more proper term, and will happen on more irregular road surfaces, again, as you describe.

Since it's been 25k since you had an alignment, I'd start there. If that doesn't solve the problem, then back to the tire shop for their help.

Sooner rather than later is good to be moving on this; don't want to leave them any wiggle room for a 'road damaged' tire.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the process of performing a road force balance will demonstrate that a tire is bad. So that is really the first thing that should be done. Stick the thing on a road force balancer, if it can be balanced like that, then you are good to go. If it can't, then change tire and move on.

Also note that some tire shops use the wrong kind of adapter to balance tires on these trucks. If you take a look at the lug nuts, they aren't the conventional conical lug nuts. Putting these rims on a "lug centric" balancer will usually result in an incorrect balancing. They must be balanced on a machine that is set up hub-centric.

 

He is describing that it doesn't drift. Darty-ness somewhat falls under drifting. What he is describing is consistent with balancing or bulging.
And also the fact that it started with the new tires. If it was an alignment issue, it would have been pre-existing.

 

Yeah I worded that poorly.. I meant Road force first, which should tell you whether one needs balancing, it will also help check wheel.. But sometimes even if you get one "balanced" it still won't fix it bc it's a bad tire, in which case replace.
Also when road forcing, sometimes if a wheel and tire is really off, they'll have to move the tire on the wheel so they match up best for balancing.

 

Unless the tires were worn enough to compensate for the toe.

I'm not saying it isn't a tire. It may well be. But at 25k, and with new tires, an alignment is a worthwhile maintenance either way.

 

I had a 1998 back in 2003 that I had multiple sets of tires I could not get balanced. I also went to a few different shops and the tires were all vibrating the same but finally took the tires to toyota and they balanced "Bad" tires perfectly with not a hair of vibration. From there on out I only use toyota to mount my tires after finding the best price on the internet. I have mounted 32 inch offroad tires to stock tires and aftermarket rims on a 2003 and on my 2012 without fail. Honestly I don't know why the reputable shops I went to were unable to balance them correctly.

 

There are only 2 possibilities.

One is a machine out of calibration.

The other is a tech who is either unable to work the machine properly, or who is just lazy and is satisfied with 'close'.

A Hunter Road Force is the cats meow. But just because a tire is balanced on that machine doesn't mean it was road force balanced. That is a whole separated set of steps; the machine can be used as a traditional spin balancer.

Toyota dealers don't have anything special equipment wise that I'm aware of. I think you got lucky with either a great tech or a shop supervisor who takes pride in teaching his techs. Either way, good for you.

 

I usually do my own balancing with an inexpensive bubble balancer and results come out perfectly for me....

Outside of the occasional defective tire, its all in the care given by whoever is doing the job.

 

Took my truck back in to Discount Tire yesterday. They did both a road force and spin balancing, and identified the issue as a faulty balancing on original installation. Road feedback is much smoother now.
Thanks everyone for the inputs.

 

I've been having the same problem with a set of MS/2's that were about 2 years old when I bought the truck from my dad. He told me there was a vibration right at 65mph. I chased it around. moved the tires around. Got them rebalanced 3 times. Got it aligned. Replaced the slightly sloppy rack bushings. The vibration just moved around from 60 to 75 and it also seemed to be affected by the road surface. It changed the speed at which it occurred from time to time. I thought I got rid of it after the last balance job and I did but then it would start vibrating whenever I took a right hand turn at 65mph.
I just replaced all my suspension with Deavers in the rear, OME shocks and struts and got an alignment and as near as I can tell the vibration seems to be gone but I won't know for sure until the ice and snow move out of the area. The truck does ride a whole lot smoother all the way around.
I think it's the tries myself or a bad balancing job. Every company makes bad tires from time to time but my vibration stayed up front no matter where I put the tires. I'm hoping it's gone for good now no matter what was causing it.