Steering Wheel Vibration

Hate to start another thread like this, but I don't see this answered anywhere and I am looking for advice.

To try and sum up a long story, back in July I recently purchased a brand new 2019 4runner TRD Off Road. Had no problems with the vehicle, even made a VA-SC to and from road trip. Decided to treat myself and upgrade my tires and wheels in September and that is when the nightmare started. I have random steering wheel vibrations at speeds 58mph-70mph. Sometimes its so bad you can physically see and feel the steering wheel shake back and forth to where it is almost not drivable. Other times its just barely noticeable and sometimes it doesn't do it at all.

I purchased fury vision wheels and Falken wildpeaks in stock size and had them installed at my local Discount Tire. Started out fine for a couple weeks and sold my stock tires and wheels. Then I started getting this vibration problem. After many, and I mean many, road force balances (which all came up fine) and an alignment done at a local Toyota dealership, a service manager advised me to get new tires. So okay no problem--I go and get a new set of Falken tires installed. Same problem occurs intermittently. After every road force balance, the ride is a little bit better up until magic day number 4 where its back like nothing was ever changed.

Discount Tire has been awesome, and so willing to work with me, so one day we tried a few different scenarios--different tires on the same wheel, different wheels on the same tires, tire rotations, etc and none of them seemed to fix the problem. However I did get my best ride with a different brand of tires, so I begun thinking maybe its the Falken tires causing the problems. So we put on the Goodyear Ultra terrains.

Guess what? Vibrations still exist and get worse after day 4. So then I start thinking that its the vision fury wheels that my vehicle doesn't like..so I go ahead and purchase the TRD pro wheels at a Toyota dealership. I go to have them installed, road forced balanced, and throw in an alignment because of the new tires. Low and behold the issue is still 100% there. Finally at this point I'm fed up and I go to my dealership where I actually purchased the vehicle from and see what they can do for me...They balance my tires again and say that should take care of the problem. I go for a test drive with the technician and he notices it's still there. They get someone from Toyota corporate to weigh in on it a week later and determined the road force numbers were way out of range (which isn't true). I call Toyota, explain this whole long story, I get assigned a case manager--only to be told this time that because the tires are considered aftermarket, I will have ride problems like this as they are not tires that Toyota recommends. My only solution, according to this Toyota case manager, is to purchase another set of stock tires, as that's the only type of tires I can have with my 4runner. I personally don't have unlimited amounts of money to keep buying new tires and hoping they fix the problem.

I've researched this issue to no end. I think I've read every single post on this issue that you can find with a google search. I am aware that others have this same issue, despite never changing their tires. At this point, I don't think it's the tires but rather something else. Going thru these lengths just seems so excessive, and that something isn't right here. People change their tires every day and don't seem to be running into the same problems that I have had.

So my question is, to anyone that was willing to read all that, if you were me...what would be your next step(s)?

 

Get quality tires like toyo or nitto.

 

I would try a good 4X4 shop and see what they can do, i am pretty sure it is the balance. I was going to go with the Wildpeak AT 3W but my guy said they were hard as hell to get balanced, so i went with these in the 285/70/17 load E with no problems.

 

Sucks to hear about your issues!

None of this info may actually help, but I'm going to tell a story anyway...

Before my 4Runner, I had a 2014 TRD Off Road Tacoma. On that truck I had 16" SCS F5 wheels with 265/75/16 Goodyear Dura Tracs. Most of the time, that truck would drive perfectly smooth, but some days I would get significant vibrations. This would happen randomly. Sometimes cold weather, sometimes warm weather, sometimes only once a month. I just got used to it and didn't care.

Currently, on my 4Runner, I have 17" SCS Ray 10 wheels and 265/70/17 Nitto Ridge Grapplers. Well, guess what... this vehicle has the same random, unpredictable vibration issue. It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes it does.

The tires on both of these vehicles had been balanced more than once, each vehicle by different shops.
All are hub centric wheels, and the lug nuts have always been properly torqued.

I'm going to sound like I work for Toyota when I say this...but I've just accepted this as an odd "characteristic of these vehicles" when they have beefy all terrain tires on them.

 

falken tires are a good middle line tire. There is a reason they are hundreds cheaper for a set....

The reason I recommend Nitto or Toyo is the way the initial layers of rubber are molded for the carcass. Nitto and Toyo are spiral wound from a continuous strand of rubber making them more uniform versus the standard which is overlapping flaps of rubber. The overlapping flap method creates heavy areas which take more weight to balance out the tire.

 

Nope, vehicle is outdoors on my driveway and it’s my daily driver so it doesn’t sit long enough to get any flat spots.

Those look great! And I was always under the impression, if it was a out of balance tire issue, the vibration would be consistent. Some days, I get kissed by an angel and I don’t experience the vibration at all.

 

My son works for a tire balancing equipment manufacturer (Hunter). Their latest and greatest can measure the rim balance separate from the tire balance using lasers. It will calculate where the tire needs to be on the rim to get fairly close to balanced. Then it’s a matter of just a few ounces of weight in strategic spots to dial it in. Not sure if this will help, but it might be worth the time to find a tire place in your area that has one of these machines.

Also, check your tire pressure and set it to Toyota’s specs (label is on the driver’s side door frame). Do not use the numbers on the tires themselves.

 

Just got back from another tire balance. This time I went to discount tire as they were the ones I bought the tires from. They have the latest up to date hunter equipment. I wanted the road force numbers that my dealership said were unacceptable and unable to balance.

The numbers as follows:
RR 11lbs
RF 27lbs
LF 26lbs
LR 16lbs

And the tires are inflated to 32psi. The GM said they all zero’d out. And the tires with the lowest numbers required the most weight. An acceptable range is 0-26 pounds. Do these seem to be unusual numbers for my Goodyear Wranger Ultraterrain tires? Discount tire says no.

And to note, on my way home, the vibrations are still there.

 

Holy crap, that sucks. In my old and feeble mind your 2019 probably does not have enough wear on any thing to cause this, so it falls back to tires and wheels. I know this is driving you crazy, because its driving me crazy. To me the fronts are taking to much weights, i am sorry, but i would take it back and ask them to swap front to back, and then have the tech. go for a ride. I really feel for you.

 

I had an issue with vibes on a new set of falken at3 and a set of fifteen52 wheels well after 4 attempts we got it down to manageable and only vibrates slightly at 60
We increased tires pressure to 39 and the biggest difference was how tight the wheel bolts are and their sequencing any over tight bolts threw off the wheel balances
J

 

Increase tire pressure to 39 or 40. I have the Falkens as well & I notice they run much better with higher pressure. Slightly stiffer ride but vibration goes away. You may notice some vibration first thing in the morning or after vehicle sits for a while. This typically goes away after the first 5 min until the tires get up to temp & pressure increases again. keep us updated and Good luck!

 

Had the exact same issue with my tire upgrade when i installed the falkens, a wheel alignment fixed that issue. Did my alignment at brake plus.

 

My story and I'm sticking to it!
I ordered a set of General Grabber AT/X 275 70/17 from Tire Pro had them delivered to my work. I then had a mobile service come to my work and mount and balance them on my stock TRD OR wheels. That next day when I got on the freeway and hit around 60 mph, the steering wheel had a bit of a shake that wasn't there before the tire swap. I called them back, same guy came out, he checked em, said they were out of balance. he went ahead and re-did all the tires and I haven't had a problem since.
I did switch wheels this last week, put 5 VTX Rogues on the Runner. Everything is still Okie Dokie!

I hope you get it figured out!

 

You're going to get a bunch of possible fixes to this because there are a bunch of possible fixes

After you try balancing and different tire pressures, try an alignment as well.

I had vibes on a new 4Runner with stock wheels and tires. Once I switched to A/T tires and got an alignment, my vibes went away.

You could also check the needle bearing on the drivers side front differential by switching it into 4wd on the highway when you are experiencing those vibes. If the vibes go away in 4wd, it's the bearing and needs to be replaced. Don't do this experiment while turning on dry pavement and follow the manual for turning on 4High on the fly. If it is the needle bearing, replace with an ECGS bushing. This is a common problem in Tacomas and there are a bunch of threads on it in those God forsaken forums.

Also, there is a TSB for vibes on the 4Runner that relates to the steering rack guide preload spring. I would check into this if all else fails.

Best of luck.

 

Your head must be spinning with all these options. Try the easiest fix & go from there. Sounds like it’s sporadic so that leads me to believe it’s tire pressure related. If it was constant then it could be other possibilities. The tire pressure fluctuates a bit depending on temp.
Just my .02¢....hope it helps!

Happy thanksgiving to all

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

At one time I had General Grabbers I got from Big-O on my 2003 Tacoma. Amazing all terrain traction, but a pain in the bumper to get and keep balanced (there were weights running for 6 inches along the rim on some tires). Since I bought them from Big-O, they had free rotation and balance, so it was no bucks out of my pocket to keep getting them balanced.

When the Grabbers wore out, I got a set of Big-O Bigfoot A/T tires. The balance issues were pretty much non-existant. The traction was as good as the Grabbers, and quite a bit better than the Bigfoot A/Ts I had before the Grabbers (new and improved tread design).

Fast forward to 2019 when I get my new ORP with those OEM Dumblop tires. Right away I start doing my due diligence to get better off-road tires. A buddy of mine highly recommended Cooper AT3 he put on his T4R. I checked them out and compared them to my first place contender Big-O Bigfoot A/T. “Lo and behold”, they looked the same. Further research revealed that the Bigfoot A/T is manufactured by Cooper for Big-O and is essentially a rebadged Cooper AT3.

All that said, the Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) work great and have had no balance issues. From reading all the tire related posts and my own experience, my “seat of the pants” observation is that the tires with more aggressive tread seem to be more susceptible to balance issues, possibly due to softer tread compound.

I would be curious as to what the treadwear numbers are for these balance impaired tires are (generally, the higher the number, the harder the compound and the longer the expected tread life for a particular application and driving style).

 

Update:

Sorry, I’ve been busy during this whole holiday so I haven’t had a chance to check. I also wanted to wait it out a potential fix I think I figured out before I came back and shared.

So after that Tuesday when I got them balanced I took @SlvrSlug suggestion and went back to Discount Tire the next day to get my tires rotated putting the tires with the highest road force weight 26 and 27lbs in the rear. Since doing that, I have yet to experience any abnormal steering wheel vibration.

However, now I am feeling a vibration in my seat—which to me is good news as I’ve had my tires rotated before and the vibration never changed. Now that they have I think I officially have a good light at the end of the tunnel. So sometime this week, either today or tomorrow I will go back to DT and see if they can get my rear tires road force under 20 pounds to see if I can get rid of all the vibrations and hope that the steering wheel one won’t come back. If that becomes the case then I am back to square one of course.

My theory on all this, as the GM at DT was explaining to me, the hunter machine considers all tires to be okay with a roadforce balance between 1-26lbs and in green, 27lbs and up to be in the yellow, and some other higher weight I forgot to be in the red. From all my extensive reading on this topic, I’ve gathered you ideally want your road force to be under 20lbs otherwise you will feel it especially on a clearly very sensitive vehicle like a 4runner. DT not knowing this and their machine saying the tires in the green, they were lead to believe all the balance jobs were good enough. As for the dealer, I don’t expect them really to know much about tires and balancing anyways so I’m not surprised with them not knowing. All in all, my theory is I’ve just had repeated tire balances that weren’t all that great.

I don’t know a whole lot about vehicles and it’s unfortunate I’ve had to go to these depths to figure this out. So it’s a good thing I sure as hell know how to google and use my brain. Definitely a learning process. From here on out at least I know to request certain requirements for my tire balances and to always get the numbers on the balances. Here’s hoping this will solve my 3 month long headache!!

 

I just found & read this whole post. Phew!
Congratulations on your victory! If I may point out a few things that were not covered. Road quality. We got our T4R in March '19. A week later they had to do some paint corrections on it. We were given a SR5 to drive & it vibrated all the time. We took it with 5 miles & had it a few days (we told them about it).
The next week I put on Duratracs and 90% of the time there is no issue.
This is my wife's daily so I only know what I know. I was driving & the wheel began to shimmy. I asked her if it always did this or if it was new. She said it never happens. 1/4 mile down the interstate & the expansion joints changed & it was like riding on a cloud. I now feel it every time we drive that section of interstate.
Conclusion: still unclear. Very happy you are close to an answer.
Good luck.

 

I would ask them to replace those two tires for new ones, they should have no problem with that request seeing’s how they are proven to be a defect.

 

Hmmm. Interesting. I’ll have to take a peek at my tires. Hopefully the Technicolor spots haven’t faded to black.