New tires. Balance or road conditions?

They were.

 

How bad was the wheel moving if you let go of it? The issue is that the shake is subtle and not a consistent level, it is like it corresponds to road conditions. I don't do much highway as it is so I need to put more time in there at 70+ to see what is going on. I really hate Ohio roads for stuff like this

 

I've never seen a noticeable shake in the steering wheel from bad balance personally. You can see it when a car drives down the road because it kinda has a vertical bounce to it but it's subtle like you said. It's definitely a feeling you get, think vertical up/down vibration. A lot of what you'll feel immediately is in the seat, but you can feel it anywhere. I'd imagine poor roads would make the shake more intense because now you have two kinds of shaking. Bring it up to 45-60mi/hr on as smooth a road as you can find and if you feel that vibration get someone to check the balance. Mine got REALLY bad between 65-100km/hr
Edit: If you've had the wheels balanced your tires could be duds, even one of them. Your tires could potentially also have liquid from air compressors in them which unfortunately sometimes is inevitable with condensation. The liquid can settle at stops, but cause shaking during acceleration and deceleration as well as higher speeds.

 

Thanks for the detailed post, it helps. The tires are brand new so I theoretically should be safe from moisture. As far as what i am feeling in the seat, so far it feels normal and consistent with my old tires. Meaning I am feeling the nuances of the road and can see when/why things are going on.

 

Not a problem. If you got a different load index your truck will feel different too. I went from stock offroad tires (SL?) to 33" E rated LT tires. Things got pretty rough.

 

So I figured I would post what ended up happening.

I couldn't come to a conclusion myself and recalled that what appeared to be a new guy working on my tires the first go around. Called up DT, got an appointment. Went in the next day, requested that new guy not touch my truck (in a nice way, not looking to get anyone in trouble) and one of the managers told me he would do the whole thing himself. Turns out one tire needed a whole section of weights and a couple others needed tweaked. No tires out of round, truck feels much better now.

On a side note they said the Falkens have been pretty consistent and they rarely see them back. Obviously my issue was a tech error, not the tire itself. They did say Falken had a bad batch that went out, but was a while ago.

 

Not to quote myself (pat pat) but you did exactly what I suggest and the problem was exactly was I suspected (pat pat).
That’s great to hear. Caulk 1 up for Tacoma world the one stop shop for a family of brothers and friends helping each other out. Cool man. Now you can get back to enjoying your truck. I get my tires rotated at every oil change to get maximum life. Balancing isn’t as frequent unless your curb hopping, pot holing, burnouts, or rough riding. Unless of course it’s the techs first day

 

Also I bought from discount tires for years. Always bought Pirelli’s for all my cars and BF Goodrich and now Falkens for trucks. If you ever come across a tire shop you really like you can always buy online of TIRE RACK and if you have them shipped directly to the shop you can get the optional road hazard, if shipped to your house your on your own though

 

Ha, yes you were right. I appreciate it. I will rotate every 4 to 5k, my buddy has a lift and it will be easy to do. But from what I understand DT will do it for me so that might be worth it especially in the winter

 

Ya man tires are too expensive not to get the most out of them.