Vibration with new tires above 55mph

Hi all. Forgive me if this has already been asked. I did search around a bit but didn't see anything specifically the same as mine (watch someone find a thread)...

Anyway i have a 17 TRD sport. Has the 17in wheels with stock 265/65/R17 tires. OEM was Toyo Open Country A30s. They needed to be replaced so I had a local chain tire shop mount/install, etc. Michelin Defender LTX stock size. This past thursday.

I immediately had an issue with vibration in the steering wheel, truck/seats at roughly 55mph+.

The shop i bought the tires from said they had balanced the tires, so i took it to another shop and had them balance. Still vibration. I took it to a different location of the same chain that first installed the tires (closer to my house and open on the weekend).

Long story short, since Thursday the tires have been balanced (road force) 4 times and have actually been swapped with another set of the same michelin tires and still no luck.

SO. as of right now, the shop manager will be installing yokohama geolander h/ts and seeing if that works.

This leads me to a couple questions if TW land could help a fellow owner out.

1. Has anyone ever run into this issue? I never asked if they did an alignment, but i haven't had any pulling one way or another while driving so didn't think about it.
2. Could it be anything else? Didn't start until the new tires were installed.
3. Is the open country A30 the only tire that toyota put on the TRD Sports? I may have to go back to an OEM tire and would like know if they had any better options.

Thanks all. Needless to say this has been quite frustrating.

 

I don’t think it’s alignment since you didn’t change anything, but at this rate I don’t see how checking it would hurt? They could’ve knocked something just right to throw it off just enough to make a difference

 

A technician putting a wheel back onto the vehicle hard enough to change his alignment?

 

One or more tires could be out of round?

 

Maybe. But they have gone through 8 tires and wouldn't the road force balancijg machine tell them that?

 

In my experience, a lot of tire shops are staffed my inexperienced morons. Are you really asking this question?

 

Yes I am.

 

Yes road force would tell you that information.

 

How did the title of the thread get changed?

 

Make sure the company is using a Haweka adapter that is made for Toyota wheels to get a proper balance. If not used you will always have an issue. Check the build date on the tire and make sure they are fairly new. Should be 4 numbers. The first is the week and last two are the year. Example 0119 week one of 2019. The tires could have been sitting in a hot ass warehouse. Something also to check is make sure they tortured the wheels to spec and not using an impact.

 

New tires are never perfectly round. To get close to that you can have them trued, and then balanced. Not all tire shops have this equipment. I'd check into that.

Tire Truing/Shaving

A process using a lathe-type machine to gently shave off excess rubber eliminating flat spots and “out-of-roundness” rendering a perfectly round tire that can then be high speed balanced properly

 

Toyota uses special weights because the clearance between the brake caliper and the wheel is very tight. Most tire shop 'low profile' weights are bigger. My guess is they are balanced on the machine then a weight gets knocked off after the wheel is bolted to the truck.

We're all just guessing though. If the tire/wheel combination is passing a road force balance test then it is time to look at the hub.

It is foolish to get new tires without getting an alignment but most alignment problems cause steering issues (wandering, etc) and uneven tire wear not vibrations.

 

A shot shock absorber can give you wheel vibration as well. The vibration would be localized to the one corner with the shot shock.

The easiest way to check for a shot shock is to press down on each fender and watch it bounce back: it should come back once and stay there. If you see a corner go up and down 2 or 3 times, you got a shot shock.

Good luck.

 

Had same issues with 2 sets of falken wildpeaks... some tires have dots that are suppose to be aligned with the valve stem... look for that... also some tire brands just suck... but I had the same issue over 60 mph vibe... switched to Ko2’s no issue

 

^^^ this too.

A buddy of mine has had this happen with Pro Comp ATs —which I believe are rebranded Cooper tires.

But I wouldn’t expect a set of Michelins to do this.

 

agreed... thats part of the reason i went with them.

 

I talked to the store manager when i dropped it off this morning. They do not do a lug centric balance. don't have the adapters for it. strangely enough having a hard time finding one in the area that has it.

 

"road force" balancing is only good if the shop actually knows how to use the machine.
On that note though, if I was paying premium prices for truck tires they better not need road force balancing. I just put some cheap retread mud tires on and they ride smooth. They were balanced on a road force machine but not "road force" balanced. They suggested it but charge extra for the required dismounting procedure. I told them if I had problems I'd come back and get them road forced. They good though, and I really only got them for Wheeling anyway.

 

Also, how much weight did they use and what type of weights, clip on or stickys?

 

Stickys. I have it back at the shop. Don't remember how much weight but it wasn't a ton