Truck difficult to control

I've thought about it being something related to the rack, perhaps bushings. Everything looks ok on mine though. Good luck with getting yours sorted. There's a solution out there for us somewhere.

 

Thanks. I never thought my steering was sloppy until I started having this issue. The suspension was always super soft, but it worked ok.

My appointment is this Thursday. Fingers crossed. If they don't help me, I will be hooking up some suspension. I will keep everyone informed.

 

I have 275/70/17 ko2s
Method con6 rims
Spc uca's
Billi 5100'
Dakar heavy leaf pack
888 coils.

I have had the same issue.
Had it religned for the 4th time and it seemed to help but most def mine gets pulled in and out of road ruts and i still get some steering vibe at highway speeds and some shudder when breaking at highspeeds.
I feel like im soooo done trying to chase this ....next step would be to just say f@$k it and buy some new more simplistic rims and some different tires.

 

How’s your tire pressure. Might be much too high.

 

Hey guys. Took the truck into the dealer this morning. They said they just went ahead and aligned it. So in typical fashion, I don't think they even test drove it.

I also complained about 3 other issues:

Diff howl: "We couldn't reproduce it on our lift with our listening equipment." Uhh ok, really? I told them drive 57 mph and feather the throttle. It's not subtle.
Rear end bottoms out too easy: "Couldn't reproduce the issue."
Clutch petal creak: "There's a tsb for this and we've ordered parts." Whoa, you're actually going to work on something? This is a first.

I was in a meeting when they called me, so I couldn't talk to the guy directly yet. I left a message with him that I'd like to demo at least the diff howl to them. I doubt the alignment will fix my issue, but fingers crossed.

 

The clutch pedal creak has plagued Tacomas across all generations...on my 1st gen I can get it to go away for awhile if I spray the spring assembly behind the pedal down with a PTFE dry lubricant like Tri Flo or WD40 Specialist Dry Lube.

 

I think this is a feature of the stock OR shocks.

I've found dealers are pretty receptive to going for short drives to demonstrate problems - before they tell you something is normal. BTW, did your truck drive better after the alignment?

 

Sounds like a traction control issue.

 

Hopefully the alignment helped.

 

Hey guys. The new alignment didn't make any noticeable difference. Looks like I'll be ordering up some suspension components when I can get some time.

I did take the shop foreman with me to reproduce the diff howl. His first comment was "Oh." He said he would ride with the tech to reproduce the howl. Not sure if hearing it himself is enough to get the process started or if tech needs to hear it himself. Whatever I guess lol.

In chatting with him in the truck, we did determine that the service writer did not put down much of the information I told him in the ticket. So the instructions I gave the writer of "Drive 57mph and feather the throttle" didn't make it to the tech.

 

Did he have any comment on the truck being difficult to control?

 

Just that they couldn't reproduce it.

 

Can you post the alignment sheet?

 

Yes, I can do that. I meant to snap a pic of the sheet on my way out of the house today, but got side-tracked.

 

Finally remembered to grab this:

 

Only thing I see is driver's side caster is low. Surprised you don't have a pull to the side with lower caster. If cross caster is too much it does 'weird' things to camber and toe when you turn.
I'd try for 2.8 on each side.
Otherwise, it's a good alignment

 

Any updates?

 

I have my follow up appointment at the dealer this Weds. This is to replace the clutch assembly, but I'll be talking to them again about the handling issue and diff howl.

I took the truck on a quick trip from Reno to Markleeville CA and back to experiment some more. I noticed that on smooth windy roads, that I don't notice the symptoms much at all. These are speeds in the 20-50 range, though. Cement freeway it's still skittish. The steering at higher speeds feels much lighter than I recall before the issue came up. Almost like it's floating around on the front end, thus making me have to correct in the lane a lot.

I did go ahead and order the firestone ride rite kit. After waffling back and forth for a long time about suspension options, I final decided I'd start with this. This kit will give me some flexibility to experiment. It will allow me to adjust for what I have loaded as well. I was going to install it last weekend, but realized that the dealer will be likely be messing around back there.

 

I've been watching this thread, because I'm noticing the same thing. I think I've gradually gotten used to the wander. After driving our fj this weekend, now I really can tell something is up. The fj is tight and right, tracks much much better than the Tacoma, very little steering corrections are needed. I think the difference is a little bit of slop in the Tacoma steering, the fj has none. I'm thinking it could possibly be a steering rack issue? Haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet.

 

Agreed. Mine felt sloppy stock, but 255/85r16s seem to exacerbate the issue for me. Will be interested to hear if anyone figures anything out. I mentioned it to the service dept. and they just said "yep that's a common complaint".