OEM tires on Base Taco with 15" wheels?

I had a starnge experience with getting new tires on the Taco. I was very happy with the OEM set of Dunlop Grand Trek tires so got another set at my local Discount Tire. Immediately I noticed a bad vibration at highway speeds(the OEM set always balanced perfectly) and went back to have the new tires rebalanced. This didn't do the trick either so I went back today to have them take another look. The manager helped me and said a couple of surprising things to me. First, he said the rims were not really wide enough for a 215 section tire - he suggested 205 should be the maximum width for the OEM wheels(makes no sense as Toyota specs 215 as the standard width)... Second he stated they have more issues with Dunlop tires as they don't use the newest technology. He offered replacing the Dunlops, but said I would likely have the same issue. I am going to have them replaced with another brand tomorrow and see how it goes, but wondered if anyone else had had a similar experience with the Dunlops.

 

Dunlops that come from the factory on this truck (AT25?) are the single worst set of tires I have ever driven on in my 15ish years with a license.

 

They're not that bad. On dry pavement. When the sun is shining.

 

...going in a straight line under 40mph LOL

 

Mine came with factory dunlops. Drove to discount tire on the way home from picking it up and put ko's on. Told the guy to give them away free to someone he didn't like.

 

Honestly, I didn't mind them as a summer tire.

 

You have to
Make sure they (Discount Tire ) are using the correct adapter for Toyota. Most balancer are hub based These rims have to be stud balanced.

 

Toyota factory wheels are hub centric. A center hole balance is fine. Something else is amiss.

 

I disagree, not saying your wrong,but there are tons of threads here about those issues and by checking it could
save OP time & $. I wouldn't dismiss it so quickly.
Not to mention I speak from experience of a similar issue with bridgestones and as result of searching other threads in here I finally took mine somewhere else. I have a trusted friend at a local discount tire we use for my Wife's Camry who confirmed Toyota OEM rims have issues with HUB centric balancers and are best road forced with adapter for stud centric and viola my Tacoma with Firestones vibration problem was gone!

I am assuming @DCSBFTMFW with 52k plus posts may be able to help more with this ....

Or maybe @splitbolt can shed some light

 

It's

It's just an alignment tool/adapter for the machine. Although it can help, it doesn't make it foolproof.

 

Thanks for the backup!

Could definitely just be the tires but
I think it's worth OP's time to try.

 

It's called a Haweka adapter that is needed to balance the Lug Centric wheels on the Tacoma.

 

I have experienced the off balance wheel sensation many times when the wheels were balanced just fine. These trucks are insanely sensitive. Wheel and tire shops use the air gun to put on your lug nuts. Then they use a torque wrench to make sure the nuts are torqued (at least) to spec. The nuts are often over torqued. The torque wrench should be used to get them up to tightness.

After every visit (I rarely go to the shops), I have to raise the truck and loosen the lugs and torque them to spec myself. If the truck felt wobbly on the drive home, this usually fixes it.

 

I had the tires swapped to the house brand(Arizonan Silver Edition III) in the same size. I immediately noticed the balance was excellent on the highway going home. I guess I just got lucky with the OEM set of tires.