Vibration after Rotation and Alignment

Got my tires rotated and balanced along with a front end alignment last week. Now I'm getting a lot of vibration through the steering wheel when above 30 or so. The shop tells me this can happen when rotating tires on vehicles with a solid rear axle. That the rear tires can have wear patterns that you don't feel until they are rotated to the front. The shop said they would take a look at it again for no charge. It had been about 8k miles since the last tire rotation, which I guess is a little long.

Anybody else ever have this problem and what do you do to prevent it from happening?

 

I would have the balance checked again.

 

like jester243 said have the balance checked
unless the tires are that bad
you can find this out by running your hands over the tires
feeling for high low spots but the shop should have picked that up
and said somthing

 

You can try to have them force balanced.

 

They definitely should have said something if the tires themselves are really bad. It was done at a tire shop, you'd think they would take any opportunity to try to sell me new tires.

 

Thanks, I'm reading up on that since you mentioned it.

 

Ok, so I found the website for the Hunter GSP9700 and found a shop (from the same chain as before) in my area with one. Went this morning and had the tires rebalanced. The rears were a little off, but the fronts were right on. I watched the guy do it and he even hand torqued the lug nuts. He said there was a little irregularity in the wear pattern and there was 1/32nd difference between the outer and inner depths. I didn't get to drive it too much before I got to work, but it seems much better. I even got compliments on my truck from the tech.

 

keep us posted let us know how it is on the ride home

 

Hope it resolved your problem, let us know

 

I drove it home and then out to my parent's house, so around 80 miles total round trip on the interstate. Much better. It seems to have fixed the majority of the problem. The steering wheel would wobble around 2 inches from left to right around it's circumference. As if you were turning very quickly back and forth from left to right. This is almost completely gone. There is still a little of that and a little drift, but it seems to vary with the condition of the road and it doesn't start at 30 mph.

I highly recommend finding a shop with a road force balance machine when getting your tires balanced. Thanks for the help David and Jester. It saved me from going back to the same shop, which I don't think would've solved the problem. They had told me the same thing on another vehicle I used to have before the Tacoma. I don't think I'll be going back there any more.