Inconsistent shaking on winter wheels/tires

Hi all! Got a question for you. 4 days ago, I changed my stock wheels on my 2022 trail edition, for my winter steel wheels and tires. Didn’t drive much the first day , but the last two days I noticed a little bit of a shake in the steering wheel at about 55 km/h, and a good shake when I go from 110 to 112-115 km/h… I know I know there is a lot of threads on these… the thing is, my summer setup is the stock wheels with stock size Toyo at3 load E, and I am not experiencing any of that… could it be just 1 or both the front tire that are out of balance that causes intermittent shaking? Or could it just be the fact that the now front tires are those that were at the back last winter and aren’t worn exactly the same?? I had in the past with AT tires had little more noise after a tire rotation, but never some shaking… thanks for your time, and hopefully your help… I will ride some more days, but probably end up going to a tire shop to check wheel balance. Just would like to have your opinion. Thanks!

 

1) I hope your winter tires not have any flat spots from poor storing practices.

2) I hope the steel wheels are in good shape too. Heavier the wheel more imperfections will feel.

3) I hope your tire shop is doing Road Force balance from a well calibrated machine by a tech who knows how to operate a Road Force machine. Not an outdated regular wheel balance machine.

 

Wheels and tire have about 4000km on them… and weren’t stored in a way they can get flat spot… so I am leaning for either wheel out of balance, on the goddamn shimmy that a lot of people seems to have…

 

It could be out balance, out of round or you threw a weight.

P.S. Please stop speaking Canadian, the km's thing throws me off. I was like "Why is this guy driving 114MPH in his 4Runner?"

 

lol at the Canadian comment sorry for that … this is my guess that a small weight got knocked a bit off… or just never was right.. and since it was in the rear last winter, I didn’t notice much

 

Intermittent steering wheel vibration is mostly likely caused by both front wheels having a moderate level of unbalance or R1H. The phase of the wheels changes every time you turn a corner and the vibration is worst when the imbalance or R1H of the front wheels add together. I keep mentioning R1H since it's not imbalance and can't be corrected with weights but it causes the same effects as imbalance. You want your tire/wheel assemblies road force balanced on a Hunter machine and you want to ask for the specific R1H values that they measure since if they are in the 10-15 pound range you may need to replace them or switch them back to the rear if a road force balance doesn't resolve your vibration.

Factories do two balances to tire/wheel assemblies. Imbalance is corrected with weights and tires are "match-mounted" to wheels such that the R1H high point aligns with the lowest point on the wheel. My point is everyone seems to understand the first type of balance and few realize the second exists but it's the one that causes many of the vibration issues posted on this forum.

 

So if you have 4 messed up wheels you might never be able to match a pair up for front?