OK, I know we don't have the best roads here in LA, but it seems like my shaking problem is getting worse. I have an 08 screw 4wd Lariat, and I am pretty sure my truck never used to do this. I put a 2.5 inch level kit on it back in Oct 2010. Recently Ive noticed on the interstate, doing 70mph my steering wheel shakes violently. It shakes my whole arm. Not sure what this is...any ideas? Pretty sure it is not the belts separating from the tires, the tires have approx 4k miles on them, and were balanced when they were put on. Maybe I need to go have them rebalanced. I was concerned it may be some kind of joint gone bad. Anyone else have this prob?

 

My first guess is that your tires are not balanced correctly. Could be a bad ball joint. Did you keep your sway bar up front when you put the leveling kit on? I assume you would, but you never know.

 

I agree with Woods. My first thought would be an alignment issue. Did you have a different set of tires out on by chance? I had a similar problem before with my steering wheel shaking around 70 and It turned out that I had a bad tire. A bent wheel could also possibly be your problem. Those are the three usual possibilities for the problem that you're having.

 

In the OP you did not mention if you got an alignment after adding the level. You can put some ugly wear on your tires in just 4k if your alignment is way out. If you have not gotten an alignment do so ASAP and rotate your tires.

 

If they are aftermarket wheels, u may need a set of hub rings. Mine did the same thing with my 22s. I balanced them thee times with the same results. Put a set of hub rings on. Gone. Never again has it done it in 115000 miles. Unless I forget to put them on when rotating the tires. The factory wheels are hubcentric. Most aftermarket are hubcentric. This fills in the gap to make them fit the hub perfectly.

 

Thanks guys! Yes I did have an alignment done the day I put the level kit on. I also do still have my sway bar up front. I still have the stock 20s, but the tires are not the Pirelli's any more, put some TOYO Open Country A/Ts on it. I am going to have the wheels balanced again. Hopefully that is the problem.

 

Yep, I can only concur. Don't think because the tires are new that they can't have problems. I bought my 2008 in February and was back in the shop within two weeks. They put brand new tires on it before i bought it, and two of them were bad! I only had 300 miles on them! Between 50-55 mph the wheel would shake real bad and the right rear of the bed would bounce like I was going over speed bumps. Ended up both tires on the right had broken belts right off the line.

Also, make sure all your wheel weights are there. I've had balance issues before and realized that a wheel threw a weight.

 

I have a similar problem...same type of tires, with aftermarket rims.

Every time I have the tires rotated and balanced I get the front end shake starting around 68 mph all the way through 75 mph or so...

Go back to the tire shop, they re-balance, and it is usually fine...until the last year. I get a vibration that won't go away. They re-balance, usually shows that balance is off when they spin it...add weights, shows OK. Mount on the car, drive for a while, more vibration, go back to shop, then they do a road force balancing. This is my second set of TOYO tires.

I think they are LT 265/65/18. I would check, but my truck is at the dealer for a tranny problem.

Regards!

 

I had a bad set of tires that caused mine todo that between 55 and 70mph.

 

How do you tell if the tire is bad, i mean obviously if the belt is splitting out of the tire, that is easy to tell. But how do you find out if the tires are bad. Tire shops actually own up to that and admit that they are bad tires? THis is the first set of TOYOs I own, I like the look, I sure hope it's not TOYO! Thanks

 

At the shop I work at, I've seen numerous bad tires. You could have a separated tire. It's not always something visible though. The easiest indicator is that the tire takes a lot of weight to balance it. That's not always a sign though. A lot of aftermarket wheels with bigger tires tend to take more weight than smaller wheels and tires. A way to find out is to ask the place where you get all of your stuff done to your truck if they do roadforce balancing. Basically what that is, is when you out the tire on the balancer, something can be likened to a very large rolling pin (like the ones used in baking) rolls on the tire while the tire is spinning at around 45 MPH and it can tell you where the heavy spot is on the tire and the wheel. From there you let the air out of the tire and break down the beads and spin the tire along the wheel to where the machine has told you. That seems to help a lot of the time. If that doesn't solve it, there is additional hardware on the machine that will allow the person in the shop to do a rim runout where it will check to see if the wheel is bent. If that's not the case then it's usually determined that a tire is bad. I hope all of that made sense.