Stumped. Tires? Rotors? Tires?

2 months ago, I bought a 2016 4x4 Sport DCSB. 53k miles. Looked beautiful, everything underneath and under the hood looked great, drove like a truck.

Came with 33” E rated KO2s. It rode like a wagon and had minor steering wheel shake. You can tell this truck was used for work and hauling stuff. Discount tire recommended new tires. KO2s were worn out. Installed new 32” SL/P rated AT3Ws. Better, smoother ride overall, but shake is still present.

Since the new tires have been installed, discount tire has balanced the left rear 3 times. First time when they were all installed. Second time, they said the left rear was possibly out of round and made the machine bounce and go to the original discount tire where I bought them to have them replaced. Went back and they said they will rotate the wheel/tire opposite 180 degrees and reattempt balance and see how it feels.

Shake is now not as present, but it’s inconsistent. Sometimes I get steering wheel shake at 60mph, sometimes I don’t. I DEFINITELY feel steering shake 65mph+. So much so the hood shakes up and down as well and I can feel my cheeks move.
However, here’s the weird thing. Sometimes I also have really bad steering wheel shake at 20mph. For example, this morning. The shake was felt through the entire truck at 20mph as bad if not worse than the 65mph+ shake. Almost as if I was driving with oval wheels.

Tl;dr:
• Sometimes (not always!) bad shake, entire truck, at 20mph
• Steering wheel shake begin to feel at 60mph all the time
• Steering wheel shake/truck shake bad at 65-70mph+ all the time
• Hard braking feel steering wheel shake/shimmy bad

Either,
1. Brake rotors are warped. Although Carfax says Dealer replaced pads and refinished rotors 6k miles ago.
2. Brake rotors have bad/uneven deposits (from previous owner hauling on highway), or from stop and go highway traffic.
3. Drum brakes are bad. A month ago in freezing weather, I had a few times where the parking brakes STUCK. Had to pump the parking brake up and down to loosen it to make it drivable. Could the drum brakes be damaged? Or are making contact while driving?
4. Discount tire needs to replace the tire, possibly out-of-round from the manufacturer.

 

I had this on an old vehicle. I never found out the root cause but I always thought it was bad tires. When driving straight, I Sometimes would have a shake at freeway speeds. Then after some slight cornering it would go away. My theory was if two tires were out of balance and were 180* apart from each other, rotationally, it would cancel out the vibes. But if they were in "time" together, it would magnify it. Interested to see what it is.

 

OP, Truck is lifted?

 

Yes. Previous owner added OME NitroCharger lift. I'd guess it's a 2". Steering wheel is not center by about 2 degrees, slight right tilt. I will eventually ask for a realignment but I doubt this is the cause of the shakes unless someone can speak on tjis with experience.

 

The only time I get symptoms like that is when the wheels are packed with snow so they are horribly out of balance so I’d start with checking the wheel balance and roundness.

I would for sure get the parking brake thing checked out as there’s something obviously wrong back there, but I don’t see how rear drums would cause the steering wheel shake. I think it’s more likely that the cable is out of adjustment or the drums are dragging slightly but that could have caused more problems.

Do you want to throw parts at it? Try new rotors, maybe new pads,and checking the drums and shoes, and greasing the sliding bits on both as well as the parking brake cable making sure all operates smoothly.

Edit - or the lift could have caused other suspension wear. How even was the tread wear on the tires that came off? Any odd patterns? With 53k on the truck, that’s seems fast to burn through a set of KO2’s unless they were replaced almost day 1 by the original owner.

 

2inch lift should not cause vibrations but Carrier bearing dropped?
If not, try OME Driveline Carrier bearing drop kit (FK29)

This might solve some vibrations.

 

Not sure what this does. I do have stock 16" Toyota wheels and the previous owner installed 1.25" spidertrax hub centric wheel spacers. Still on. Could this have also thrown off the angle?