2018 TACOMA Shimmy with LTs - Nothing Dealer Can Do!

I am running SCS Ray10's with Wildpeaks & might be ditching my setup. Just fed up with the shimmy. Maybe some TRD Pro wheels & slightly aggressive 265/75/16 tires. Constant shimmy completely ruins the experience with this truck.

 

Tried method NV's with stock tires. was a balancing nightmare. Static, dynamic, whatever, never balanced always shimmied. Didn't buy hubcentric rings.

went back to OR wheels the same tires, smooth as glass.

Figured it was a hubcentric issue. so i bought ray 10's (17") and duratracs in 265/70/17 because the ray 10's are hubcentric.

DT couldn't do a dynamic balanced due to the deep dish design. shimmied on the hwy at 65. brought it back in and they did a road force. sure enough every tire needed to be turned on the wheel to help round it out. static balance again and now it's smooth.

i had issues like this with my old 4 runner too. it's the shitty steering rack. I read on the 4runner forum it's something inside the rack that's the issue. my 4runner and tacoma are the only vehicles i've ever owned that have had issues like this. my tacoma will likely be my last toyota. just too difficult to modify and personalize in my opinion without dealing with dumb issues.

 

I am with you. This likely will be my first & last Toyota. It's unfortunate as I really like it for so many reasons but the build quality is atrocious.

 

A lot of tires comes out of round from the factory, think egg shaped . Most people wouldn't feel the difference between the two. I've seen 3 out of 4 brand new tires out of round before. Even after road force balancing several times the only fix was to swap with another new tire and get lucky that it's more round per say. This was when I worked at a dealership.

 

this is a design/bean counter issue. they're cheaping out on the rack. i've noticed this with toyota and it's how they keep their margins up. they cut corners in the strangest ways. yeah the engines and drivetrain are reliable, but yet vehicle features are far behind and corners are cut elsewhere. not to mention the rest of their lineup is just butt ass ugly.

 

Thanks for all the replies guys!

I have an appointment tomorrow with the most reputable tire shop in town. Hoping they find something.

I also have an appointment with the dealer on Wednesday and they are removing my ko2s/wheels and testing them on a new tacoma.

Fingers crossed.

 

Went from stock OR wranglers on stock OR wheels to the General Grabber ATX LTs 265/75/16s on stock rims. I hear no difference in road noise and my wheels were balanced at the hobby shop on base. I have 0 vibes at 80mph... I agree that maybe some people have harmonic issues with certain tire and wheel combos Idk

 

I put 265 75 16s on stock rims. 10 ply mt. Had the death vibrations going on. After I had it lifted and aligned. It went away.

 

I'm on 265/70/17 C load KO2s and they are far from perfect. I had my first set replaced entirely because they were shit. Two were "unbalanceable." Road force balance machine reported something like 45 lbs of RFV on one and another high 30s. Limit for "acceptable" on LT tires is 35 lbs which is quite high really. Limit for the stock P truck tires is 24 lbs and P passenger car tires is 18 lbs. So in some respect it is what it is but getting a shit tire is not uncommon and living with a bit of shakes is part of running an aggressive LT tire. My second set is still not perfect. I think all four are either in the teens or twenties and even they had to be balanced multiple times. I went to 3 different shops in the end. Road force at the dealership was the second place and while they did okay it wasn't good enough - even after multiple attempts. Eventually went to discount tire who insisted that I just spin balance them first...I wanted to go straight to their RFB. He wouldn't let me pay for the RFB until they spin balanced first and said he'd do the RFB for free if it didn't work. Sure enough it worked but only for a time. 10k miles and a year later and some shakes have returned albeit not bad. Plan to get them rebalanced again and hopefully that buys me another 5-10k miles. All along the way every single guy I spoke with said they get this all the time so...price you have to pay I suppose.

 

The way I feel is, I'd rather have these tires with some shimmies than smooth rolling P tires. So it is what it is in the end but I need to be sure that there's nothing wrong that can be fixed...

On another note... I'm not having a great evening now after washing my truck and finding all four wheels were gouged out with what looks to be a screwdriver while taking the weights off. Not impressed.

I don't know what kind of crowd they have working there. I've lost all trust in them.

When I picked up the truck on delivery, there was rock chips all over the hood and bumper (new truck coming in to swap all the parts for me). The tires had 20psi all around so I'm guessing they skipped the PDI.

I had my factory hard tonneau installed and they just threw the seals in the bed and called it good...

Terrible.






I'll be requesting these wheels be replaced tomorrow. You just don't do that...that's carelessness not a mistake. Especially on all 4...

 

Can you elaborate? I recently had a set of 275/70R17 Coopers mounted on a 0 offset ("deep dish") wheel and the tech told me they took a LOT of weight to balance and probably still wouldn't be perfect. There are two rows of weights close to the outside (face) of each wheel. I think they used a regular spinning (dynamic) balancing machine. Should I take it back?

 

Pay to play bro if you can't afford a quality wheel stick with stock and you won't have problems. I've always ran OEM wheels including right now (FJ trail teams wheels) because unless you spend $500+ per wheel your aftermarket options are going to be shit, so don't bitch and blame toyota when you're shitty $120 wheels don't balance like OEM lol.

 

Unless you spend $2,000 on a set of wheels, your options are shit? That's fucking hilarious.

Unless you use 103 octane race fuel, your engine is going to run like shit too.

 

Its honestly a surprise to you that $100-$200 after market wheels are overall heavier, crack easier, and don't balance as well as OEM?? You must be new to this....

Do you really think the difference between SCS and Volks is just marketing??

 

This sounds dumb, but switch front to rear on one side only. If both front tires are out of round, they will get a shimmy going when they are in harmonic balance with eachother. I never had BFG KO2’s do it (I’m lifted a bit and currently have E rated 265/75/16‘s on stock OR wheels with no issues), but Ive had a pair of Yoko high speed radial snow tires that had to be shaved round at a tire shop due to being ever so slightly out of round and they’d shake my BMW a lot at speed.

 

Rarely are there issues with aftermarket wheels. I’m not sure where you are going with this. You don’t need to spend $2000 on a good set of wheels and I don’t know anyone who does since it’s a waste of money.

OP,

I would just get a set of bias ply tires and not even bother with the balancing

 

It affects FJs too. I’ve had a hell of a time with my Grabber AT2s. Takes going to one shop who really put in the work to rotate tires on rims and road force them.

The Trail Teams trucks had a service bulletin to raise the PSI to 45# in the LT BFG KOs to stop shimmy.

I run mine at 45ish now and that seems to help tremendously even though I know they will likely wear out in the middle more. Oh well. New tires sooner!!

 

Interesting. So most major tire manufacturers recommend 45-50 psi for LT tires.

Most people don’t run them that high because it’s too harsh of a ride.

 

I don’t know about major tire manufacturers.... but that’s what Toyota did. It’s a bit harsher but the suspension does its job and it’s not the worst.

 

I’ve called both General, BFGoodrich, and Goodyear and asked them what they recommend for an LT for a 2017 Tacoma doublecab they recommended 45-50 PSI. For my F250 they recommended 70 front and 65 rear.