Steering wheel shake

Hey guys, so i jist bought a new tacoma, still 500 miles on it. I replaced the oem wheels and tires to methods and ko2s. After that I have been noticing my steering wheel shakes when i get on the freeway. Im not sure if this is normal with switching to more aggressive tires? Shouldnt be an alignment issue either since its brand new and havent taken it off road yet.
Has anyone experienced this?

 

sure others have

unlikely its the wheels tho some can be out round

the tyres are all another matter

look around U will see those gum balls with quite a bit of weight on them sometimes

even those there are many forms of ‘ balancing ‘ ............

rubber congregates.......puddles........offsets when put in a steam mold

under high pressure

2nd largest tyre plant n world = my home town

sometimes regular car/truck tyres are out o round.........more rubber some places than other

make sure the pressures are correct........................ ALL Corners

swap front to back same side...................... ( i know i will get tail gunned here ) >>>>>> Do NOT X the swap !!!

see if that helps

 

Larger tires? Best to have the alignment checked, and:
Were all 4 tires balanced?
Was 'road force' balancing done?

 

Good reason to give a new-vehicle a 2,000-3,000 mile shake-down before making mods. Otherwise is it the mod I just performed or something else.

 

Most likely poor balancing job. Or possibly a defective wheel / tire. Rotate the tires (front to back) and see if anything changes.

 

it aint religion but i want to say amen !!

 

'New' has little to do with proper alignment.

Then again, shake rarely does either.

Rotate tires front to rear and see if shake moves. Simple and free first step.

 

It is very likely the shop that mounted the tires didn't balance them correctly. Certain brands of aftermarket tires are notoriously hard to balance properly. Pretty common to have to take them back to be balanced again. Take it back to the shop they should make it right

 

Well update, took it back to discount tires. I was told my left rear wheel was out of balance. So they rebalanced it. However, the shaking is still there and seems worse than before. Shimmy on the steering wheel still there too. I really think these tires are out of round

 

Are the tires mounted properly... there is a inside and outside. Secondly there has been a known issue with those tires. Thirdly. There could be a issue that recently came out with a batch of wheels with center bore is wrong... (I'll try to search for the thread and edit here) to tired to search them all, but here
https://www.google.com/search?q=met...hWCnWoFHT5WDjoQrQIoBHoECAQQBQ&biw=360&bih=616
Good luck
Fourth, the lug nuts could just be over or under torqued.

 

Shaking felt in the seat = rear tire(s)
Shaking felt in the steering wheel = front tire(s)

 

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but lug nuts. Are you using the correct lug nuts for those wheels? (yes lug nuts can be different for different wheels)

 

I just went through something like this with my truck. At 200 miles or so I bought new OEM TRD 4runner wheels (2021) and had them wrapped in Michelin TLX All Terrains. Discount Tire did the install and there was a slight vibration ration/steering wheel shake exactly at 60mph. It would mostly smooth out by 65-70 or so. I had them try to rebalance them twice and it was never perfect; they said the wheels were very hard to balance - whatever that means. I switched to the 2020 Sema wheels with the same tires and all is well. Even OEM, some wheels require more skill and exact placement of the balancing weights than others.

 

Take it to Toyota for balance.

True experience.
Prior to my tires being swapped to freshly restored wheels, my truck would have a shimmy in the steering wheel beginning at 56 mph and smoothing out around 65 mph.
When Toyota pulled the tires off the old wheels, swapped TPMS and balanced the new wheels my steering wheel shimmy is gone.

I noticed all the balance weights are stick on type attached to the inside of the rim. All are mounted on the wheel centerline. This location will eliminate any lateral imbalance from weights mounted on the edge of the rim. My previous wheels had weights on the rim edge.

IIRC, the balance spec on Toyota Tacoma is +/- 8 grams.......seems like a really tight spec. I'm not 100% sure that is correct, but I did find that on a document. Sorry, can't recall what document or where.

I suspect your balance is a bit off.

 

Hi,

Whenever I see this issue of a vibration with the Ko’s the first thing I ask is what pressure are you running. The first week I installed mine and ran them at 32 psi cold/35 hot it felt like the rims were loose at highway speed. I spent tIme doing the chalk test and ended at a lower pressure around 31 hot and the vibration is gone. If you have the E tire the higher pressure can make a diff.
Erence. Air them down a bit and try it out.

 

so i actually aired my tire down today. I was on 37 psi when the wheel shimmy was bad. So i dropped it down to 33 psi and now my shimmy is gone! Weird how that is? However i still feel some vibration on my seats, discount tire said my wheels are perfectly balanced. Not sure if i need lower my rear tire pressures more and see if that will make a difference?

 

I found out the hard way that some wheels are hub-centered and some are lug-centered. My 2014 Tacoma with the 5-lug axles was supposed to have hub-centered wheels with a conical hole in the middle of the wheel that locks onto a matching cone built into the axle. And it was supposed to have lug nuts with a flat face that touches the wheel. But I had horrible steering wheel shake, and aftermarket wheels when I bought the truck...

Came to find out the aftermarket wheels were lug-centered design, with 5 metal cones built in where the lug nuts touch, and they had swapped in common lug nuts with a cone shaped face.

Switched back to a hub-centered stock Toyota steel wheel set (off a Highlander, maybe). And all my steering wheel shake was instantly resolved. Didn't need an alignment afterwards, and it goes straight down the road with no more shake.

That's my story. Your mileage may vary. But I'd have a look at those new wheels you put on just before the shaking problem appeared.

 

I highly recommend a chalk test. You can search for how to do one. 33 psi cold is probably still high. I think I settled 31-31.5 cold so it runs 32 psi hot.

 

the chalk test........or soapy water will get U c l o s e .........

ALL tyres crown at speed............. even radials

so it wont crown just sitting in the driveway

OVER inflated tyres wear quicker ( less mileage )

true UNderinflated tyres can Overheatn also have excessive wear become

dangerous especially at hiway speeds for long periods o time

i usa a tyre depth gauge run em flat all the way across

 

Not unusual to get a bad set of tires that won't balance either. I've found many shops here do a piss poor job when it comes to balancing larger tires/wheels than the vehicle came with. Seen them try 3-4 times to get it right.