Vibration after new wheels and tires and numerous balancing

Sounds logical enough, but I'm no engineer and can't claim to understand much about the physics of the combination of weight, shape, and motion. Wish I was more studious at the crucial times in life.
I look back now and almost (almost) regret spending my junior year of highschool through the age of 35 partying and playing drums in rock n roll bands. I seriously don't even know how I graduated high school or college. I just know that it happened.

 

Same here, playing guitar and now retired for 9 years, playing with cars and guitars. My passion is old vintage Martins. My friend is the drummer for the band At War and his father was a back up drummer for Elvis.

 

Damn rotors are giving me a hard time.
Off to buy some removal bolts.



I’ll have this done in a few hours.

 

Did this fix it?

 

Changing rotors on my gen 1 tundra was an adventure. They really get stuck in place where you need to squirt a mix of acetone and atf between them. Only then after sitting awhile you could beat them off.

 

Rotors turned and new Wagner pads made for a smooth ride. What are the odds?
So yeah, it smoothed right out.
First time Ive had to turn rotors at 44k miles.
Fresh rotors look nice!
They popped off easy with M8 1.25 removal bolts

 

I wish my old tundra came with threaded rotor holes like the rear brake drums. Sure would of made life a lot easier. Had to practically destroy the oem rotors using a 4lb hammer to finally get them loose. At any rate installing a set of ebc slotted and drilled rotors was night and day better braking.

 

Congrats!!! So you got it... did you replace prior to the trip or after?

Mine happened at around 14k miles... too early. I'm thinking they have a quality issue because I haven't done anything wild to cause it warp. I've ordered a set of StopTech rotors to go along a set of TRD pads and braided hoses. Hopefully some improvement.

 

Thanks, yes got it done a few hours before we left. Smooth sailing all the way to Salt Lake City and killer hwy miles 21+.
So glad I dropped the 285’s for 265’s.

I almost bit the bullet on some higher end rotors but decided to ride these out to 100k miles. Unless they warp again!

I’m still curious as to why the warped rotors only show up on lighter setups.

Anyway, glad you found it out for us and that we have smooth rides now!

 

Just wanted to add to this thread, because despite conventional wisdom of this symptom (sporadic steering wheel shake between 60-80mph), I couldn't believe that rotors would resolve this.

My symptoms: 2019 TRD OR with no issues with OEM wheels/tires. Upgraded wheels to brand new 16x8 (+1mm offset) Fuel Rebels, and since OEM Goodyear Kevlar tires only had 15k on them, had them transferred to the new wheels. Noticed steering wheel shimmy at highway speed that wasn't there before, went back 2 days later for a rebalance at Discount Tire. Tech reports wheels balanced perfectly. Shimmy still there on subsequent test drive. I noticed over the next week that at consistent speed (cruise control set at 73mph), the shimmy would come and go. Started noticing it would come and go depending on curves in the road. That led me to this thread.

I installed new rotors and pads (from Rock Auto, surprised it only set me back $107 shipped!) on Friday before a short road trip and proceeded to immediately hit 400 miles of freeway driving. Shimmy has yet to make a re-appearance.

Thanks @Phich and @Armygreen for this thread

 

Tacoma World! Aside from the drama and making you spend too much money on mods you don’t really need, it truly does help solve a lot of truck problems through community experience! Glad you got it figured out bud

 

I'm guessing that your correction of your problem was a result of the removal and reinstallation and not the replacement of the rotors and pads. It is possible, but a very rare possibility that your rotor was out of balance. A very, very remote possibility. I have seen rotor that the vent holes in one spot were packed with crud and the rotor was the cause, but that was from a vehicle that had sat for a number of years.

 

Quick question(s)

1. Obviously this vibration/shimmy was not there before the new wheels were installed? Correct?
2. You did the brake job? You installed the wheels afterwards and torqued them properly?

It seems like if all your answers are "Yes" than it might just be possible that "Someone over torqued your new wheels causing the rotor issue". Might be time for a certain shop to get there Torque Wrench Re-Calibrated or to get rid of the Impact Gun Torque Sticks.

(note-I do also agree with SunGod. From what I've seen, rotors rarely are the cause of a vibration or Shimmy unless the brakes are applied. Very rare that they cause a highway speed shimmy or vibration but...I have seen it.) Glad you got rid of the problem.

Most of the time when we encounter Shimmy and Vibration after new wheels were installed it's because someone forgot to install the Hub-Centric rings. I don't believe that happens on Toyotas though.

 

Correct. There was no detectable shimmy before the new wheels were installed. And yes, I did the brakes myself. I personally feel that paying for brake work is almost like highway robbery because its so simple and quick.

I'll also add that prior to spending money on brake parts (I hate throwing money at problems), I did remove both front wheels myself, made sure that hub centric rings were not required (they're not), and reinstalled the wheels and torqued them to spec myself in the off chance that something weird happened at the shop with the elementary task of bolting wheels up. The nuts didn't seem over-torqued upon removal, and though I didn't "measure" the torque required to remove the lug nuts, they did not require any extraneous force to get them off that would have signaled to me that the installer did something incorrectly.

Perhaps. Maybe I should have taken my Removal and Reinstall test beyond just the wheels to reinstall the original brakes (is that what you're saying?), but at that point, given then relatively inexpensive cost of getting the new rotors/pads, it seemed competent to replace them "while I was in there". I understand where Sungod and Burmapeak are coming from. Never in my 20 years of wrenching on cars would a steering wheel shimmy--when not braking--point to brakes until I came across this thread.

Unintentional bonus to the new pads--brake pedal modulation and feel is greatly improved. The original pads felt like an on-off switch, kind of. The first half of the travel felt like applying 15% braking power, anything beyond that felt like 90% braking power. Difficult to brake smoothly, especially after stepping out of my GTI or QX60. With the replacement parts, the truck now modulates more like the other cars, which is to say I can easily modulate braking without needing to think about it. But, now that I'm typing this paragraph out, maybe it was that on-off switch feeling that maybe the rotors were warped to hell but I could never feel it while braking because I was barely using the brakes. ** shrug **

Anyhow, I will always bow to empirical evidence. Two others in this thread proved it to themselves enough for me to part with 107 of my beloved dollars, and now my own experience oddly replicates it. YMMV, take it with a grain of salt, blah blah blah, but at the end of the day, my steering wheel is as steady as it was before.

 

No question it makes sense to replace the parts while you have them off considering the cost.

 

Since both of your vibrations started after getting your tire and wheels swapped, sounds the tire shop warped your rotors when putting your wheels back on.

I was a brake/front end mechanic over thirty years ago and would see some tire techs using the impacts guns not even doing a star pattern.

After several warped rotors management had everyone hand toureqing all the wheels. I thought after all these years it had become an industry standard but sounds like guys are still cranking them down when they get in a hurry.

 

This is definitely a possibility. I must admit that while I always do a star pattern, I'm pretty certain that I over-torque my lugs, and on top of that, I have had multiple shops do alignments, and have had 3 different wheel/tire setups so the wheels have been off and on many times.

 

From what I've seen, they all use Torque sticks on their guns. This is fine if you use expensive high quality units. There are many shops that cut corners and buy whats cheapest which in this case usually turns out to be a regular 1/2" extension painted a fancy color. There is a huge difference ratteling a lugnut with a 5" 85lb. Torque stick and a standard 5" chromoly extension. Not to mention the care they take of their Torque wrenches if they do have them. I've seen so many tire techs toss their torque wrench over to their work bench after tightening wheels its not funny. Those are spendy and delicate units.

 

Yeah, I'm with ya on this one. But that's how we roll Sungod....lol. Good to see ya again. Be safe.
Zim

 

So it was your rotors and brake pads causing a steering shimmy driving down the highway