Handling issues

Hello. I have a 2023 Tacoma TRD Sport 4x4. The truck is having issues handling at highway speed 65-70mph. The truck wanders back and forth. I'm constantly having to steer to keep it going straight. It's been to the dealership 3 times for an alignment and still the problem persists. I have a 2 in leveling kit and 275/75/17 all terrain tires. The problem was present before doing the lift and tires. Truck has only 11k miles on it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Welcome to the forum

Take the truck to an actual alignment shop, the dealer has had 3X to try.

Also, was the issue there before the tires were installed?
Many years ago I had a car that would almost throw you off the road yet didn't vibrate, the issue turned out to be a bad balance job on the tires.

 

Have you looked to see you have proper air pressure in the tires. I recently was looking over a car for a really bad pull, the owner thought he needed brakes. It turned out the left front tire was at 60lbs while the rest were with in spec.

 

I find myself wondering if this is just a perception thing. Why would I say that? My previous car was an Acura TL which had great "On-Center Feel" (as did all of my cars prior to it), when I first got my 2022 TRD Sport DCSB 4x4 I too found myself needing to pay very close attention in order to stay in my lane. I read an analysis done a number of years ago which explained a correlation between tire width and on-center feel (as a general rule, the wider the front tires the worse the on-center feel); given my Tacoma has the widest tires of any vehicle I've ever owned, I simply chalked up the lack of feel to the wider tires and learned to live with it. After nearly 25,000 miles I no longer notice the issue.

 

What make and model of tires? What pressure? Stock wheels?
What “leveling kit”? Post links, screenshots are the suck.
Did you bring up the wandering before the lift/tires to the dealership?

 

I believe wandering can also occur if you don’t have enough positive camber. I found my truck is happiest with around +1.0 degree. Do you have aftermarket UCAs? Lifting with stock upper arms can cause the top of the tire to pull in, creating negative camber, which can prevent the tires from tracking straight.

 

Post your alignment sheet.

 

Did you have different tires prior to lift ? If the tires were the same then it’s a tire issue . Some tires grab the road more so if there is an imperfection in the road it will pull the truck . I had some Toyo at that did that got rid of them and the problem went away .

 

Thanks for your response. Yes the issue was present before the tires were replaced. I had it aligned about 2 weeks before the tires and lift were installed. They re aligned it when they did the install and the problem was still there so I took it back for round 3 and still no change.

 

Hi. Yes before the lift and new tires I had stock wheels and tires and had the same issue.

 

Hello. Yes I have checked the air pressure of the tire and have tried different pressures. No change.

 

This was the sheet given after the 1st alignment before installing the lift and tires. I don't have the other sheets

 

Definitely ask for the sheets for every alignment you get. What is probably happening now is after your 2 inch lift, you lost a lot of caster (this is why it’s recommended to get an alignment after lifting) Your caster angle is probably too low now, and that’s why it wanders. High positive caster is what keeps your car stable at high speeds. It’s the same reason why people also recommend new upper control arms for a 2inch + lift, because at a certain height the caster angle will become so low and impossible to get back into spec. You gotta find a good alignment shop. I made the same mistake you made after getting a lift. dealer techs, chain shop techs, and tire shop techs are extremely lazy and/or incompetent and they only want to adjust the toe angle, and will ignore camber and caster. Dont waste your money anymore and find a good alignment shop who specializes in custom alignments and/or lifted trucks. The dealer is probably not even trying to make any real adjustments. Make sure you tell your next alignment shop your problem with your handling and they will hopefully bring your caster angle back into spec, but they may say it’s impossible because of the lift, and at that point you will need to buy new upper control arms

 

Agreed. He didn't have a lot of caster to start and would have been lucky to have gotten it back to where it was. With his initial alignment caster was .5 lower on the right it could have contributed to a pull to the right before the lift. I would hope that was corrected after the lift. I do agree with @Horseshoez that it could be a bit of perception since it was a problem from the start. These trucks don't have a lot of caster to begin with.

 

Never had a problem before or after lift.

 

This was one of those toe and go alignments where they only adjusted the toe and not the camber or the caster. The camber is fine being at or near zero but as previously noted, the caster is both low and reversed left to right from what it ought to be. What we don't know is how much is this truck lifted and does it have aftermarket suspension parts that will allow more positive caster. There is also one other glaring issue in that alignment spec printout, and that's the amount of rear toe, nearly half a degree positive on the left and nearly the same as negative on the right. That would tend to indicate that either they got the wheel sensors on crooked or the rear axle is slightly askew, which, of course is going to cause problems.

 

You have to "steer " most vehicles, highway, not, whatever speed haha.

 

True, but some vehicles track straight down the highway with little input, others require constant input.

 

I have a sport also, and the shock package lends to a twitchy ride on some roads. It seems to me, it feels like a bump steer issue, obviously higher tire pressures would add to that feeling.

If I were you, I would find an offroad or alignment only shop, not the dealer, not a big box, chain store, and ask for as much caster as they can get away with (equal on both sides), and still keep your in toe, and camber within specs.

This will lengthen the wheel base a touch, and help with the wandering. You should be able to get close to 3 degrees of caster, with the stock control arms, high 2's would work. They should be able to get you between 2.7-3.1. Good luck! Ski