12' Taco Has The Shakes

Rick8325, I'm kind of running out of ideas here but there is one last one. There used to be an old school wheel balance guy here that had a machine to balance the wheel/tire/brake assembly spinning at various speeds while on the vehicle. I don't know if such machines or the people to operate them even exist anymore but it might be worth working the phone to make a connection. They called it spin balancing on the car.

There is some reason that it is shaking....and after a tire fix.

Because it appeared after a tire repair maybe try undoing things and basically start over from scratch using Toyota wheels again. If it were mine I would probably try to find some 16" Toyo steelies or alloys with OEM tires mounted and just start over...and then go from there. There has got to be someone who has takeoffs around that could at least be tried.

 

I still have the stock wheels and tires. Thanks for the ideas but I'm not going to keep paying for balancing and mounting tires on wheels.

 

Yea, I know exactly what you mean. When I was having so much trouble one of the tire shops (of the many) took a special interest in it because they could not get them balanced. I guess they felt bad. They encouraged me to bring it in during slow times and said they would follow my lead of trying out various things and would not charge me. We did that several times and I finally hit pay dirt when I bought my own adapter.

 

Rick8325, I am with Taco09 - if you could find a set of known-vibration-free Toyota wheels and tires just for a loaner and try those, you could completely rule out the wheels/tires. I know it is extremely unlikely, but you could possibly have a bad wheel/tire in BOTH sets of wheels you have used.

Before you even do that, though, try what I did - jack up each wheel and spin them to make sure they are spinning true. I just used a jackstand with a paint stirrer taped to it to move to the rim and tire as I spun each by hand. You can move it around to check for runout in all directions. That will rule out anything really weird like a wheel flange not true or a slightly bent axle. I know when they inspected your truck and did an alignment they should have caught something like that if it was there, but with the crappy service with just about everything nowadays, you never know.

One more thing that is really even more of a longshot is the possibility of a front or rear brake that is dragging "part-way" - where it spins mostly free, but has a tight spot during part of the rotation. Not even sure what could cause this, but if it exists I would think it could possibly induce a steering wheel shake (just guessing - I am no engineer). I would think you would feel something like this when you apply the brakes, but again when we are running out of ideas, it pretty easy to check just by spinning each wheel by hand.

Keep us posted on what you find out.

 

Sometimes you may get snow or mud on in the rim. This may cause it to shake if enough gets in there. Happened to me with mud. Check your rims and wash out anything in there.

 

My stock set ran perfect for almost a year then I got a flat on the front pass tire which was plugged. Then the shakes started. I got the flat for running over glass, no curbs. I just can't believe that my new set is not balancing correctly. 3 shops have said the tires were perfect and one shop road forced them with the correct adapter. All tires were rotated each visit to all shops. I honestly think it's something under the steering wheel at that rag joint. It's very loose when I jiggle it. I'm not only having shakes but the steering wheel also wanders on it's on. As far as breaks, I've recently popped in some ceramic pads in the front (day after I put new wheels/tires on). My rear shoes squeak a lot. I free-spun the front wheels and they look fairly perfect to my eyes. I get no vibration or shake when I apply the brakes.

 

I just managed to get a zip tie in the loose steering wheel joint. Steering feels tighter but vibration and shake is still there.

 

My stock tires vibrated too when I first got my truck. Went to several of dealers and some claimed it was normal and some attempt to re-balance without success One dealer even replaced them with a brand new set and they still vibrated. I got feed up with repeated trips to the dealer and paid out of my pocket for balancing from an independent shop that was able to balance correctly. It just sounds like you haven't found a shop that can balance tires precisely. With out trucks you can't ballpark the balance. It has to be dead nuts.

 

I have a hard time believing 3 different shops haven't balanced these wheels and tires properly. If the Tacoma is so difficult to balance then everyone would be having this problem.

 

Seems like when it's colder out it shakes more until the truck warms up then the shaking dies down.

 

Try 5 or 6 for me. Fact is some trucks just have it and some are less sensitive.

Time to ratchet this thing up. I would do this:

1. Go to Hunter.com
2. Click Your Hunter Representative at the top.
3. Enter Zip Code, then click on search
4. Page appears that says Your Hunter Representative and shows photos.
Go. to photo of person that says Service and highlights Parts, Services, Training, Installation. Click Email Me.
5. Enter your phone, email, etc. Here is a possible sample email:

Dear______: I'm wondering if you would be kind enough to help me solve a problem? I have a Toyota Tacoma that has developed shimmying following a tire repair. Several shops have attempted to balance the wheels but Tacomas are particularly sensitive to accurate balancing. Can you please recommend a few technicians that you have trained on the Hunter Road Force Balancing Machine you would feel comfortable doing wheel balancing on your personal car? Toyota also recommends that the Haweka adapter be used along with the road force machine so I would need that a shop that has that as well.
Thank you very much. ____________your name
​

 

6 trips to the dealers for me until I went to an independent shop.

 

Yeah guys but the stock tires and wheels were doing the same thing. If I'm going to bring it in to 20 different shops then it'll be cheaper to just trade it in for a Silverado.