well that sucks, i had to do the same with my 04 heritage. so far so good with my 08 tho. good luck

 

sorry to see your selling because of this, i know what its like to have a problem you cant find. its probably something stupid like a wheelbearing, or bent wheel, sell it, take a breather, take you time, and find your dream truck.

 

also i bet those torque specs a few pages back are correct, the bolt at the bottom of the coilover to the control arms torque spec is 215 foot pounds

 

I replaced one flat spotted wheel that was found during one of the RF Balances but it did nothing to help/resolve the issue. My home mortgage lender contacted me monday evening and offered to refinance our mortgage from 6.5% to 4.005%. So, a new vehicle is on hold for now.

I am almost ready to slam it in to a brick wall. I am so angry after just a few minutes of driving it that I just can't get behind the steering wheel. I no longer drive Chevy/GMC trucks because they were always in the shop and could never seem to get fixed correctly. I really miss my '95 F150 XL Longbed; not a single issue other than some brake dust squeel that was fixed and never returned. I have looked at some used Silverado's but I am not sure I could ever bring myself to own one again. My father-in-law and oldest son drive chevy trucks and my youngest son and I drive Ford's. All my friends drive F150's, F250's, classic 60's Shelby's/Mustang's and are member's of the local Mustang club. They would never let me get any rest if I bought a GM truck.

I've replaced three sets of tires, bought a used set of tires/wheels, bought a new wheel, two alignments, front pads/rotors, struts and shocks. The used tires/wheels cured the excessive bounce and the shimmy but the vibration in the steering wheel was still present. I removed the old used Michelin's from the used set of wheels and installed the replacement BFG tires and the shimmy was non present but the vibration remained.

The truck was parked for two days and I took it to work; it had the flat tire feel/shimmy/shudder that did not go away after verifying tire pressure and I even bumped it up to 38 psi. The roads are very lousy around here but the latest issue does not clear up even on a new stretch of road between home and work. I took the Stang GT to church last night and it had a shimmy on certain parts of the highway. That's just an example of how bad it is to drive around here. I take the same road to work everyday but none of this began until I had the dealership install the first set of tires at 42K miles.

I am going to check the left side e-brake expander and the right front brake caliper pins, the lower pin was a little sticky so I gave it a little extra cleaning and used synthetic brake caliper-pin lube on both sides.

Maybe I should find a set of good/used Michelin's and have them installed on the used wheels just to see what would happen. This is really wearing me out and the wife is starting to notice it.

 

more tires? try other things. its not the tires. you would not get 3 bad sets of tires in a row. is anyone gonna try the bearing in the rearend? on another thread, a guy replaced his rearend and it fixed the problem. its something in the rearend, probably the bearing on the pinion gear, but not 100% sure. just worth trying.

 

If I could get the dealer to even look at it I definitely would. I still have an Extended Service Agreement but they could just care less about touching it.

I visited a dealer yesterday and drove a new Focus. Yeah, I know! My wife had two Escorts before we met and they both had over 100K miles. The trucks in the area are only marked down $3600-4200 dollars. I purchased my '07 for almost $8K under MSRP.

Maybe the next owner will have better luck with it. Other than the vibe issue, it's been a great truck. I test drive a new Eco Boost on 12-8-10. I may be looking at one when the wife finishes her Master's Degree.

I do have the Lightning and Stang GT (my new DD) to play with.

 

How many times can you replace your tires and re-balance them before it get's done right?

I've had 3 new sets of tires, one used set of tires, two RF balances, 2 standard balances, 2 alignments, pads, rotor's, shocks and struts.

I was on my way to trade in my '07 when I stopped at a new-to-me tire shop to re-install the 2nd set of BFG Long Trail T/A Tour tires on the factory STX alloy's. I needed to get rid of the TPMS light before heading to the Ford Dealer.

I left the shop an hour later and it rode somewhat better. I took it to work a few days later because the '10 I was looking at was overpriced. I have driven two day's, back and forth to work and even a one day drive from AR to IN and back. The tires ride as smooth as can be on new asphault surfaces with NO vibration or shimmy/nibble in the steering wheel and no erratic bounce or handling. It does give some road feed-back on lousy road surfaces and I can now feel some exhaust vibe from my Magnaflow cat-back at 70 mph. But, I am glad that after all the money and time I put into fixing this it is finally handling the way it should.

It seems that a new balance machine and a competent tech is all it takes. Too bad it didn't happen $3k before now.

I have a new tire shop.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

 

i drove about 500 miles and 9 days without my heritage doing it. then all of a sudden it appeared again. hopefully yours is fixed but i think its just hiding right now.

 

I'm having the same problem, but it's not too bad. I was hoping to find a fix here somewhere.

I'm wondering if it's in the rack, they do have that bolt in the rack that's suppose to stop steering nibble.

 

Mine is fixed. I had a out of round rim and a bad brand new Michelin up front.

With a new tire and the rim moved to the rear, truck is smooth, smooth now.

 

We are having record temperatures this week starting Monday. On Tuesday after work I felt this for the first time. It seems to come and go. I can't really see a repeatable scheme of speed or or turning. I am wondering if its because of the severe heat and heat index right now. Based on a number of responses, this seems to be hard to pin down. My tires are not very old and the truck mostly rides fine right now. This morning it did it but it was already 80 degrees at 5am.

 

I have this too. It just started when I rotated my tires after coming back from a camping trip. I did the soft brake pedal mod about 20,000km ago and a year ago but I hadnt towed since then. I am going to have the tires re-rotated and re-balanced and see if it goes away. If it doesnt go away then tonight I will try backing off the brake booster rod a hair and see if that helps.

If not then into the shop she goes. Has anyone checked the steering shock?

 

Well so checked both my brakes and the tires and neither solved the issue. Tomorrow night she is going up on a hoist for a mechanic buddy (a Ford tech) to check it out.

Hope to god it is something easy.

 

9 times out of 10 the tires/wheels cause the vibration. Do a road force balance at a real tire place. They will tell you if the tires or wheels are out of spec.

 

Had some of the same issues....What I did:

Pulled front wheels and cleaned hub surfaces (A bit of rust)
Re-greased caliper slides
Re-tightened strut bolts (top & bottom)

This may or may not resolve the issue(s) however, worked favorably for me