Stearing Issue with Falken Wildpeak Load E Tires

Sometimes a tire company will specify a certain pressure, but that can be for tire longevity. They don't want unhappy customers leaving reviews about how they only got X amount of milage.
It could be something like that. If you told them you wanted comfort they may have directed you toward different tires

 

Put one of the tires against something solid like a curb. Truck in Park (or neutral if manual), ebrake engaged, rear tires chocked. (be safe!!!) have someone move the wheel back and forth just a few inches and watch the steering rack. With 290k miles, I'd bet those factory rack bushings gotta be toast by now. My guess is you'll see the rack moving back and forth a good bit once there's resistance on the tires from the curb.

Just my guess.

 

Airing down is meant for short-term off roading and/or rock crawling. Not normal road/highway driving speeds. At 30psi, that's a 25% reduction off of what E rated tires are supposed to be at for our size trucks. That's going to cause heat build up due to that extra thickness of the tire and likely shorten the lifespan. You probably wouldn't run your P rated tires at 23psi because that's the equivilant.

 

Every set of LTs I've had went 50-60k miles at 30-32 psi.

No truck tire is going to get "too hot" at 30 psi

 

I aired down to 35 in the front, 38 in the back and while the dampening seemed to be significantly better from road bumps, the rolling resistance was a lot higher. Almost like I had to keep my foot on the gas for it to move. I haven't regeared so maybe that's contributing to it, but holy smokes.

Seems like my options at this point would be to replace the steering rack bushings, air down the tires and live with the lower gas mileage and possible quicker tire wear, or get different tires.

 

No disrespect, but what is the point of 285/75/17 if you're not comfortable going below 35 psi?

If the "rolling resistance" is not what you expected you're on the wrong tires. Those things are almost 34 inches, that's a pretty big tire compared to stock

Have you ever had large 10 ply tires before? Maybe you're just a little shocked by the difference in how they feel

Kiss your mpgs goodbye, as well as a smooth ride like a passenger car. You're in different territory now

 

Curious if OP went from a stock size P tire straight to a 285 E tire.

 

Don't blindly replace things though. Be methodical about it. Check them before you just order and replace them. I'd hate to see you go through all that to pull the rack (which can be a b!tch), only to have it not be the issue. Make a list of all of the things from the tires/wheels, ball joints, tie rods, bushings, everything that will connect your hands from the steering wheel to the road, check them off in order from one direction to the other until you find the culprit.

Pet peeve of mine is throwing parts at it, especially multiple parts at once because if you fix the issue, you're not going to know if it was a culmination of failures or one bad failure.

Be meticulous, methodical about it.

 

Yeah, maybe that was a bit of a false dilemma. Definitely feel like I'm exhausting my options for what it could be. Part of my issue is when I had these tires mounted/balanced the big tire store never caught that they were defective tires from the manufacturer and needed 8 oz of weight--crazy amount which equates to about 100 lbs of road force, anything over 30 lbs is noticeable.

It used to feel undriveable above 40 MPH and had some scary highway experiences (death wobble) so I think part of my experience of these tires is colored by that issue. Will keep on truckin. Thanks for all your feedback everyone.

 

I hear that, it's easy to get frustrated with this kind of thing. I've never personally used them, but I've heard of others having good luck with those balance beads. Again, no personal experience with them, but perhaps something to try if needed. That sounds like a lot of weight to have tacked on...

There are lots of guys driving these trucks around with big tires and no issues like this, so there's got to be something causing yours. Try searching the web for diagrams of the steering system on the truck, it's not very complex- this will give you ideas of where this potential play is coming from. Assuming that your alignment is good (seems to be ok based off your numbers), there has to be something or a combo of things causing this.

 

You, my friend, are a freaking genius. That was the problem this whole time. I visually inspected the bushings and tried to move the rack by hand a few times but this test you recommended showed exactly the problem. The rack was moving as soon as the wheels hit the curb. Tons of play.

I had this truck looked at by 5 different shops and no one caught this. You'd think there would be a good way to test this on the rack but maybe no one bothered.

Thank you! You're a Godsend for sure. I had already ordered the energy suspension bushings and have them installed waiting for a good day to put this 110k mile rack on. Amazing! After 4 months of tracking this issue its hard to believe it was something so simple. Nifty trick to test out the bushings too.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and opinions. Good bunch of ideas here and all sorts of viewpoints so I appreciate everyone's help.

 

Fantastic! Glad that helped you narrow down the issue! Pulling on it by hand I had the same experience, (1st gen Tacoma) but using the advantage of the power steering against a curb it was super obvious my bushings were toast.

Report back once you’ve got them swapped out, It should make a world of difference.

 

Yeah, so much better after swapping out the bushings. No bump steer whatsoever and firmed up the ride even at low speeds. Thank you.

Now it seems as though the bushing on the driver side isn't able to be torqued down and just deforms squishing out the side. I've read on here about other people having this problem and deacribing it as "sway" or "wander". Would a larger fender washer work to keep the steer rack bolt tight without pressing into the bushing or does that defeat the purpose of the bushing?

Here are a few pictures.

 

It’s been a while since I did mine, are your washers on both sides? Center sleeve in both bushings the same length (ie-not too short?)

I don’t recall having any issue torquing mine, but I just kinda went “oh Jesus that’s tight.”

I’d make sure everything is correct for the bushings and that they’re bottomed out in the rack. That’s a weird issue.

 

I installed the bushings and sleeve into the rack a while ago, can't remember if the sleeve was long enough.

Yeah, a few people have had issue with the energy suspension not torquing down enough. The fix was to weld two tabs to the outside of the rack to keep it from moving back and forth. Here is the forum:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/truck-swaying-while-driving.789573/#post-28294234

I contacted Energy, will see what happens.

Thanks mate!

 

From that other thread, it looks like you've got an answer. Now I'm going to have to crawl under mine or find the exact bushings I ordered and make sure that this can't happen to my truck when I least expect it. Glad you've got it sorted out!