Steering wheel Shake

Zacowacko · Jul 23, 2021

Buckless said: ↑

Jumping in late on the thread, but thought my situation might benefit others. Own a 2011 Tacoma PreRunner (148K), 265/70/16 tires on factory aluminum wheels. The truck has been flawless, never had an issue with it. Recently developed a shake in the steering wheel between 60-75 mph. No shaking below 60 and mild shaking above 75. Checked the tire pressure; 27.5 in front and 28.5 in rear. Put air in until they were 29 front & 32 rear. The test drive showed that the shake was now between 65 - 75 mph. So I started reading the shaky Tacoma steering wheel threads for more information. Thanks to everyone who weighed in on them, they were very helpful.

Took a test drive down the street with my window rolled down and heard a noise coming from my left front tire that sounded like something rubbing on every rotation. Crawled underneath to see a large patch of tar on the tread and inside sidewall of the front left tire, maybe a coffee cup or two amount. It was a 4" wide by 12" long patch with fine granules of rock mixed in. Scrubbed it with hot soapy water, wire brush, and scraped it with a putty knife. Repeated the process multiple times until most of it was removed. Rinsed off the area and tire and took it for another test drive. No shakes. This situation just shows how a single, out of balance front tire can shake the steering wheel of a Tacoma. Now I'm just waiting for the 21.5 mm socket to arrive from Amazon so I can remove my swollen lug nuts and rotate my tires. I'll finish cleaning the rest of the tar off when I remove the wheel.
Click to expand...

Its funny how it can be something so simple sometimes. Mine were over or under torqued lug nuts from tire change guys and possibly not balanced/shitty tires.

Buckless · Jul 23, 2021

I agree, and thankful it wasn't something more time consuming to troubleshoot, or expensive to resolve. The Steelman Pro 21.5 mm socket arrived today so I took the wheel off and scraped the remaining tar out of the tire treads. The area was closer to 20" long. I was surprised how hard the tar and rock chips made that area of the tire. So it makes sense to me now why the steering wheel was shaking; an out of balance front tire with a hard spot on it.

f1shtaco · Apr 19, 2022

Steering wheel used to shake pretty bad between 55-70MPH, initially thought it was balance, got rebalanced, slightly helped. Upon my suspension rebuild, I replaced inner and outer tie rods, sway bar bushings, end links, upgraded from stock 4600's(160k on em) to bilstein 5100's and trd sport coils. This removed NEARLY ALL VIBRATIONS. Felt a slight shimmy at 66 mph, no more or less. About a week ago I had the truck in for differential fluids and after those were replaced I have absolutely no vibrations. Smooth as can be

StayLion · Dec 31, 2023

Alignment.. off-road... need alignment again... off-road and decided to deal with it

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Steering wheel Shake

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Steering wheel Shake

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Buckless Member

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