Steering wheel Shake

^haha good plan. I noticed from your sig pic it looks like you're running duratracs as well? I wonder if these tires have difficulty staying balanced. I do recall the tire shop had a bit of trouble balancing them when they were first installed.

 

They are Duratracs, but my BFG AT's bounced just the same. I am thinking it is more of a tire "weight" issue. Using over sized/more aggressive/heavier tire than the truck was designed for.

 

I was going to say my BF A/t, but thinking about it. Every single offroad tire i have ever run has had to be ballanced and re-done over and over.. I personaly have always been hard on them and used them off the road as well.

But a little wobble from tire is "normal" to a point, when running tires like you said. Some people and some tires have better luck but meh, at least its not a violent shake or vibration.

that being said, the stock tires, and all of my car tires have always stayed balanced great.

 

ok so I don't know much about tire balancing at all but I'll tell you a little story that happened to me recently.

So I took off my wheels to paint them. forgot to note which wheel came off of which side. one wheel had a bunch of weights and the other had 1 little tiny one. When I put them back on (I did make sure to put the weights back on the right tires), I had put the wheels that was previously on the driver side on the passenger side and vice versa. Start driving it and it just felt weird but I left it. Then I drove to work on the freeway and noticed a steering wheel shake that wasn't previously there and I noticed the tires just felt different. Looked through some old pics and noticed that I put the tires back on different sides and decided to switch them. vibration gone...weird tire feeling gone. Everything was back to normal after I put them back on the sides the were on before.

That's my lame story.

 

I run oversized aggressive tires on everything, including my van. On the Taco I put Toyo ATs in a passenger tire and while it was no longer undrivable like with the duratracs, it still had to go back twice before it was livable enough it wasn't worth another trip to the tire store.

I'm due for a rotation and if it comes back I might spring for a dealership balance to see if that's the problem- I'll be pissed too if that's it, I don't want to be dropping $150 every few thousand miles to do what should be free at Discount.

 

dealer wants 150 to balance?!

 

Guys y'all would have a better shot at curing cancer than figuring out Tacoma tire balance issues. My truck has stock steal wheels stock tires in 20k miles I have probably had my tires balanced 20 times, including at the dealership. The dealership finally got them balanced after keeping my truck 3 days had to replace 2 wheels. Now I am scared to touch them, was wanting to upgrade my wheels but can't stand to think of going back to shaken especially when I will be paying to do it.

 

I have had the annoying steering wheel shake for about a year now and from what i have found out that taking my truck to the dealership and getting the tires rotated and balanced there FIXED my steering wheel shake. You of course have to get past all the bull crap that the dealership offers with wanting to change everything on your vehicle but mine is fixed now. Was shaking from 30 mph to 65mph. Apparently the dealership has the right parts to adequetly balance the tires. It took almost an hour an a half to start working on my truck but the did fix the problem

 

I'll contribute to this. Put on 6" spindle lift. No vibes I can remember. Drove to get the tires. Got the tires no known vibes. Went to the alignment shop no known vibes. Alignment felt off, went back. VIBES major. Back to alignment still vibes and shaking steering wheel. Took it to get tires balanced no change. 6x. No change. New duratracs. Still shaking. New BFG's still shaking. Road force and regular balancing no change. Same wheels with 265/75/16 before and no shakes. At my wits ends now. Had it checked out numerous times still shaking. After 70 it smoothes out. Replaced carrier bearing and have messed and messed with ds angles no change. Got rid of 4" lift block in the rear still no change. Beginning to think something with the lift is jacked up even though everyone says no. It comes and goes as well. Wheels have 106.2 bore so no room for a hub ring.

Shops have checked. Tie rods, u joints, ball joints nothing else to check that I can think of. No play in the wheels and no noise so no wheel bearing issue. What else am I missing?

Dealerhip won't balance them since tires weren't from them nor were wheels. Really beginning to get pissed and can't go back to stock since I sold all my stock components.

Current tires are 285/75/16 atko

 

I don't know why people don't listen about about finding a shop that uses the Haweka adapter. I just had Goodyear Duratrac's 265/75/16 installed today. The shop I went to used the Haweka adapter with road force balancing. No vibration or steering wheel shake at all even though they had to use a lot of weight to balance them.

I could have went to Discount Tire to have them balance because they were the cheapest but they did not have a road force balancer or adapter. But I did not want the grief of going back multiple times until they get it right.

 

My Discount swore they were using the right adapter. Like the 3rd time back a guy subbing from the next nearest Discount pulled me aside and said they were not using the right thing, despite me having the conversation every time I was in, so now I go up to Discount instead of over to Discount. It's hard to tell when they swear they are doing it right, at least until you drive away.

In any case it's a PITA, I've found that the mud that gets on the tires from my road is enough to throw the balance off and make the truck nearly un-drivable.

Also, was there a TSB or something from Toyota? I vaguely recall something but I have newborns so I have neither time nor a brain left- can anybody point me to it? TIA

 

TSB as far as?

Theres one for the intermediate shaft in the steering assembly.

had mine replaced. was loose and had a clunk like feel. swapped out under extended warranty and its much better. that was about a year or so ago.

 

TSB SU002–96 is from 1996 but it still applies today. It calls for the use of the Haweka adapter.

The Tacoma is so sensitive to tire imbalance. The adapter makes sure everything it centered and equal pressure is applied on the lug holes when the tire/wheel assembly is on the arbor. Hub centric or lug centric, it doesn't matter. The adapter should still be used even though our wheels are hub centric.

 

If anyone wants to try to use a steering wheel damper to lessen the shake but don't want to do any modification, the latest TSB has a damper made specifically for the 2005-2011 models, p/n 45713-60030.

45713-35050 is still for 2012+ models.

See page 9 of the PDF. It shows a picture of the damper that has recessed areas so there will be clearance for the air bag cover.

 

Update on MY Shake. This past weekend i adjusted my 5100's from .85 to 2.5 and went and got an alignment from a truck place. When I pulled out on the road I was amazed at the lack of steering shake. Although it is still there around 50 and close to 80. On a scale of 1-100 where it was a shitty 98, its about a 20 now. Maybe check you guys alignment if you haven't.

 

I got rid of 80% of my steering wheel shake by rotating front wheels to back and taking a wire brush to the mating surfaces of all areas that touch. Hopefully it stays away for a long time.

 

Had two more alignments done by the dealership since last issue steering. Then I removed all the tiny rocks from the stock bridgestone tires. Wheel shake is gone for now.

 

I'm glad some of you are having success with steering wheel shake vibration issue. My 2012 has had this since 500 miles running Dunlop AT20 tires, its had numerous balancing done and a couple alignments no luck. October of last year the dealer put 2 new tires on the front, and problem went away for a couple of months. Dealer says they don't know what to do for me any longer, so I called Toyota Motor Corporation for the second time they are going to try and get me some better tires , but i'm not holding my breath.

This will be my last Toyota this issue has left me stressed to the max, not sure where to go from here any input would be appreciated.

Ps. The truck has only been serviced by one dealer didn't want the blame game but in the end didn't seem to matter, Toyota just stopped caring about their customers .

Jon

 

I can relate to your frustration; but, i would say keep insisting on a resolution. Toyota Corporate will get you some new tires, or at least the majority towards some new ones. HOWEVER, my experience tells me it's not the tires. I eventually (9 months or 20k miles later) traded in my 2013 tacoma (got almost full trade in value) for one that did not have the shake off the lot, and it had the Dunlops on it. Since i just put Michelins MX/2 tires on my previous truck (courtesy of Toyota), i insisted that the tires would be swaped out on the new truck. I've had the newest truck now for 17k miles (and performed multiple tire rotations) and have had absolutely not even the slightest sign of a steering wheel shake / vibration. So, to summarize, my experience tells me Totota really doesn't know what causes the shake because some do and some don't, and they can't fix the ones that do. I am happy with the one i have now; but, whether i buy another Tacoma in the future remains to be seen. Even though i got trade in value $22500 of the $23100 cost of my original purchase and kept pretty much the same monthly payment without coming out with more cash (except for the documentation fee and starting over on payments), it was an ordeal i don't want to go through again. In the end, i got a truck that does not shake...it just shouldn't take that much effort, time, and frustration. Good luck to you.

 

Had the same problem for a couple of months. Took the taco in and had the tires rotated and blanced. No more vibrations.