Changed to 305/65/17 ATZ. This is my second season with them. Re-torqued to 150 and my steering wheel still vibrates after 45mph or so. Perhaps these need ford's original lugnuts with the special washer? Is this just normal with wide tires; and the F250? It's getting to annoy me.
They have under 1000 miles on them.

 

My truck rides smooth as can be with my 10" wide wheels... Not using the factory lug nuts either.

 

Are those wheels hub-centric or lug-centric?

 

Perhaps they were never blaanced properly from the outset. What about this blemish? Two tires have them. Would that cause it? I didn't notice until I put them on the truck a month later and, they were shipped to me. They are, I believe, hub-centric. No adapter rings.

 

is it a vibration or a shaking? steering wheel will shake bad if is unbalanced but will still drive straight? vibration you might just need to be aligned. also maybe check the toe-in.
im going off what i had just done to my truck last month.

 

The steering wheel shakes but drives straight. I am going to call cust. service with 4-wheel and see if I have any recourse. But, this is my second season now. Actually 2000 miles on them. will see.

 

I had the Mickey Thompson Baja ATZ tires on my old F150, and they vibrated after I rotated them. The ones I moved from the front to the rear had cupped really bad. It had something to do with the offset of my wheels and the tires sticking out too much. Probably completely unrelated to your issue.

 

Pretty much every aftermarket rim on the market is lug centric meaning that its the lugs that center the wheel (acorn style). You can't use hub centric lug nuts (stock) on them since the center bore of the wheel is not sized correctly to fit tightly over the hub to center the wheel. If you were able to do that it would vibrate so badly you could not drive the truck. To top it off, typically there is no way you can put hub centric lug nuts on aftermarket wheels since the lug nuts are now recessed down into the wheel like yours are. Alcoa and some of the Weld wheels are the only aftermarket ones I've ever seen that were hub centric.


The bulge in the sidewall of your tire is normal. Its part of the molding process. If it drives straight down the road and doesn't try to wander all over and the only symptom is a shaking steering wheel its a balance problem. If these were bought as a package deal from 4wp or a similar type shop they probably were not balances properly. Take them in somewhere that has a road force balancing machine and have them rebalanced. Otherwise you can get a set of centramatic wheel balancers.

 

you may want to check on some steering stabilizers, if your truck doesn't have them.

 

Thats actually not a very good idea. Thats simply going to mask the problem. The steering wheel may not shake, but the actual cause of the vibration is still there wearing out parts.

 

I'm gonna have to disagree, anytime you change to aftermarket wheel/tires especially when you go to a larger size, it's gonna change the ride. When I first got my new wheels with a set of 285's it changed. Yes, steering stabilizers CAN mask certain problems but, I think he just got a shotty balancing job, when I first got mine I went to Big Chief Tire once, and Tire Kingdom twice and BOTH of the places could not balance my new tires right. Until I went to RNR. Even with my lift 2 months ago, I got 35's put on, I had vibration in the steering wheel (your gonna have some more than likely) then I got my steering stabilizers, and it cut it down but something still didn't seem right, I took it back to 4WHEELPARTS and another guy rebalanced them and said the front was 2 ounces off...and now it rides just fine. My point is,make sure you have them balanced correctly, some of these places get their shop euipment (balancers) off craigslist and their employees from Mc'donalds. Keep all your receipts!! Good luck! No offense, Powerstroke.

 

I have always heard that those indentions in the side walls are caused by running too much air in the tires.

 

Exactly. I used to run 35s on a D30 front axle under my Jeep Cherokee without a steering stabilizer. If it can be done on that tiny axle, it can be done on a D60.

 

From what I read of that you're saying about the same thing I am. The root cause of the problem here is probably a bad balancing job which has to be fixed first. Stabilizers have their place, but its only to correct a very slight shimmy at most. I see alot of times people say to just put on a stabilizer to fix a problem like this without actually fixing the true problem.

 

Thanks powerstroke73.