Steering wheel Shake

Well, after the Michelin dealer f'ed up the RFB, I took my truck to the dealer. They also did RFB, making the shake slightly less noticeable. Just returned from dealer this morning, they swapped steel wheels & new Dunlop tires from another truck on the lot. The new rims & Dunlops made the shake much worse, almost full time shake. Service manager has been great working with me on this shake problem. He is having Toyota rep come down to drive my truck & see what can or may be done next. We will see what happens.

 

A simple bent rim could and does cause this problem with many vehicles, so a simple rotating of the tires is where I would start. Do you recall hitting a curb or something that could have dented a front rim?

Note: The individuals comment above. He changed the rim size to 18" and put bigger tires on his 4 X 4, which caused his problem. He went back to 16" rims and a neutral sized tire recommended for his vehicle. "Save your money and keep your stock rims and same size tire as recommended." Just add off road tires for extra traction and stay on the gas if going through deep muddy areas or possibly floor it and bounce your way through rutted out areas. Always worked for me.

I know the 4.0L 4 X 4 comes with 16” and 17” rims depending on package.
“I highly recommend the General Grabber AT2 Mud & Snow off Road Tires for 4 X 4's. These tires even have rim protectors so you don't scratch or dent your rims if you rub against a curbing at a slow or moderate speed (of course). The tire is stepped out about 1/4" from the rim if you haven't heard of this type of tire.

I think the majority of you have the 2 wheel drive Pre-runner's which I'm not familiar with what tire comes with this vehicle. For those individual’s I would suggest my first statement noted above & go from there. Hope this helps some of you. Good luck.

 

My Preruner has the stock 16" factory rims & my new Michelin tires are 245/75R16, same size as the factory Dunlops. Both the dealer & Michelin dealer checked the runout on my rims. Both agree I don't have any bent rims. I was hoping that were the case & this would have been solved by mow.

 

i do alot of moderate off roading, and i had small vibration starting about 45 mph and went away after 50mph, a few days later it was getting worse. I went in to a local shop and asked to get realigned as i thought that was the case. 1 hr later my truck was ready, i was 6 oz. off on my driver front wheel, he re balanced all my wheels and replaced the pressure fit weights with sticky ones. My mechanic said i Shouldn't have any more problems. rides like a champ now

 

My truck has been aligned several times at both the dealer & Michelin shop. My tires have been rebalanced so many times, you can see the paint is chipped all along the rim edges from weights being removed & replaced so many times over the past 3 1/2 years. The fact that brand new rims & tires off another truck on the lot made the shaking so much worse, I think I can eliminate my tires & rims from the equation.

 

I'd say you definitely have something else going on besides the tires and rims. The next thing the dealer was going to try on mine if the tires and rims did not solve it was the balance on the drive shaft. Fortunately, the tires and rims solved the problem with mine. If mine was the drive shaft balance I was going to make them take the truck back since mine only had less than 200 miles on it.
Out of curiosity, have you had them check the drive shaft balance?

 

They don't think the driveshaft is the problem, however I don't think they've inspected or checked it. I do feel shaking & vibration through the floor & seat as well as the steering wheel. The Toyota factory rep is coming to look at my truck next Thursday. I will ask him about that. Thanks for the input. It may help! I'm kind of think it's steering related as I also feel wheel shake as I turn the wheel just off center & as it returns to center on sweeping turns at speeds above 45mph. But who knows??

 

I've dealt with wide rims and flotation tires on 4x4's since the old days (the 60's) & my feeling on the shaking issue is this:

When you alter the rims or tires or springs, or shocks, or bushings, or vehicle loading, or rake, or any & all of the above, the stock alignment numbers often won't work well anymore. In the old days a hydraulic steering damper was often employed, which changes the vibration characteristics of the system (as can any of the other methods mentioned below) but to me they are a band-aid solution.

In changing any of the things mentioned, you've moved the center of the front tire's contact patch in relation to the steering axis (the line through the ball joints--or kingpins on a straight axle) and depending on which way it moved the tire will want to scrub in or out a bit more (or less) as the truck moves forward.

What exacerbates this problem is that the steering geometry changes slightly with speed changes, as the rubber suspension bushings compress and decompress under load, and the tire sidewalls do as well.

This all results in a critical "balancing act" where you want the tires to never be at the alignment where they scrub a tiny bit, which loads the bushings & sidewalls a bit, to where the geometry changes a bit, to where the scrub reverses from in to out, to where the bushings & sidewalls decompress then recompress, causing the geometry to change a bit, causing the scrub to go from out to in to out to in to out to in repeatedly.

This is what causes the shaking: The alignment is resulting in an unstable state (at least at certain speeds.) The rubber is all just "bouncing" instead of compressing more and more as speed increases.

Normally the shake will either worsen or disappear as you go faster, but this effect is virtually guaranteed to happen at some combination of conditions/equipment/settings, so the key is to change the alignment slightly. If the situation improves, good. If not go the other way slightly & see what happens.

Often the stock suspension just requires a little adjustment of toe-in, caster & camber to stop the shake (essentially moving it to a speed so high or low that it never manifests in a material way during normal operation) but with some radical setups more adjustment is needed, and adjustable control arms could be the solution. Depending on the vehicle's suspension design, other tactics might be employed, such as custom adjustment cams, bending struts, or simply filing the adjustment slots in the frame a bit more. In mild cases a slight change in rake or spring rate might do it, or sometimes even just a change in tire pressures will be enough.

So that's where I start: alter front to rear pressures one way, then the other, & see which way reduces the shake. Then restore pressures and alter the alignment slightly to create the same effect.

 

Caddmanq, thanks for the great suggestions for stock suspension setups. Hopefully I can find an alignment shop that is willing & capable of doing what you have suggested. They seem to only set the alignment to "factory specs" & go no further. The only suspension modification I have had done was the leaf spring/shock TSB which did not make the shake/vibration any worse or better. Only thing that has made a slight difference is RFB by dealer & switching from the factory hard sidewall Dunlops to softer sidewall Michelin Lattitude tires.

 

Just wondering, does tacoma wheels have the same issues as 4runner wheels? My 4Runner wheels had to be balanced off of the bolts not the hub. The tire shop had to use an adapter to do this, and it was always a real pain in the A** to get new tires balanced properly.

I just traded my 99 4Runner off on an 08 Tacoma and I'm new here, seems like a great resource for info.

 

After seeing all of these posts on steering wheel shake and experiencing it myself I am convinced that Toyota messed something up with the design of the 2nd gen Tacoma. I have a stock two wheel drive Tacoma. My shake started not long after I bought the truck. It always happened at about 60 mph and went away at about 64 mph. I had the stock Duncraps on and drove them to the threads before putting Michelin LTX's on. I have zero shake now. I assumed it was a tire problem but after seeing all these threads where the shake won't go away no matter what is done I'm not so sure. I will say the Duncraps never felt planted like the Michelins do. That said I'm not so sure the shake won't come back with the Michelins on at some point because of what appears to be a design flaw. Is Toyota doing anything other than giving lip service to address this problem?

 

I just want to quote this because this guy knows his shit! I have the dreaded steering wheel shake (not bad) at 55-65mph. This is a direct result of putting on the new wheels/tires. Going back to Americas Tire to get it fixed hopefully. I'll keep the stock wheels and tires for now in case this becomes a nightmare. Fingers crossed

 

Went back today and had them rebalance. They put new acorn style Lugs on also. Now its nice and smooth again. This thread caused me to loose a little sleep last night. Wheeeww - glad thats fixed. Hope it stay's this way.

 

hope i dont get this problem, if i do, i know where to look

 

WTF! Really? I guess I need to get my NUTS checked! LOL

I been dealing with the shakes since I started drinking at 13....er wait....the shakes since I put my lift and wheels n tires on in 07. They put the lug nuts on that came with my new Eagle alloys.

What nuts did you buy? You have a link? Maybe I need to look into this. i just accepted the shaking cuz i needed my lift and new wheels and tires and I figured "fuck it", I'll deal with it. BUT IT IS ANNOYING AS HELL!!!

 

I dont know what type of nuts they used. They just put them on. Now I only have a slight case of the front diff vibe. It's started to bug me big time. I only have 1.6" lift up front WTF

 

Yeah it's buggin me too. Not sure what to do. I'm gettin new Hankook's in February. I'll deal with it then.

 

I run the duratracs.35000 miles on the with some fair cupping.the wheel shake started at about 30000 wear.a simple checking of.the air pressures showed every tire was 20psi underinflated who h resulted is some major "walking"
Check the psi before ya panic

 

upper/lower ball joints. BEARINGS (apparently go out faster on 05+), steering rack bushings, tie rod ends, improperly balanced/aligned wheels.

 

like he said, the lug nuts seem to be a big factor in the shaking as well. No matter the quality of the balancing job, road force or otherwise, if the wheel is not centered properly on the hub then you will still essentially be "out of balance." i'm looking into getting the dick cepek torque wheels for my truck and dick cepek says their wheels require "60-degree, conical-bulge seat lug nuts to insure the wheel is seated and centered properly to the vehicle’s hub." Also in a previous post someone said that the wheels are hub centric which is evident by their lug nuts and yes they are. Most all aftermarket wheels are non-hub centric since the hub bore is larger in order to be applied to various diff vehicles. Toyota's stock lug nuts have no shanked piece or extension in order to grab down deeper to center the wheel on the hub, but just enough to hold the wheel on their because of them being bored to fit the hub perfectly. Anyone having this problem that doesn't have ET shanked lug nuts should check out wheelers for better lugs that give more grip and help to center these aftermarket larger hubbed wheels on the stock hub