Steering wheel vibration/shimmy

2019 4 Runner: Been taking it to the dealership for the 7th time. Read CarGurus and many 4Runner model has this issues. They did alignment and rotated tires which did not do any good. Replaced Pully assembly which did helped for awhile. Then back to what it was. Only happened from cold start when leaving from home as going about between 55 mph to 65mphon highway. Next was force balance which didn't go any good. Got Corporate Toyota headquarter involved of my case number. Had Dunlop tires replaced to Yokohama tires. After taking it home, it start doing again like it was. Took it back once more. Final result was no resolution on it after they find out of newer model of 4Runner does the same thing like my 4Runner. Why keep selling 4Runner if many have report of this issue and nothing being done from this company? Anyone else have something that being done to stop this issue at all yet?

 

Properly balanced tires resolves this issue for most.

 

They did. More than few times which did not help at all.

 

We did a test drive on a 2020 which we were going to get, and 4-5 miles into the test drive this thing started to shake pretty bad. This really did not impress me, but my thinking was; there has got to be a tire in need of balance. According to the salesman when we returned to buy it if the "tire issue" was resolved, informed us it was sold, and we would have to wait for another one. Well after hearing about this issue with all the shaking going on, maybe we just lucked out and got a good one. Does the 4Runners have a steering stabilizer? This was a big issue on a slightly lifted F-150 I had many years ago. When I put on a new stabilizer, the shake went away... magically! So my thoughts are: why don't we try and retro steering stabilizers on our Runners! Once again, we basically got our Runner a couple of months ago, Fall being really busy, I haven't really crawled under the Runner much to even see if they have a stabilizer.

 

Try a different shop. I have had mine rebalanced after losing wheel weights. One shop couldn't get it perfect. I went to my off-road shop and they got it right.

 

If the shop that your using to balance your tires is not using this system, that is your problem. Show them this video and ask if they are using a system like this. If they are not, you will never get consistant
good results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-2PnLKVA0

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not sure if it has stabilizer on my 2019. Anyone know to this answer. I took it to my Baierl Toyota for service and troubleshooting. I will follow up with corporate Toyota to see if they use Wheel Balancing with Haweka QuickPlate.

 

After talking to Case Manager, they do not seem to see anything wrong with it. Call that normal. They do not think it needs to re balance again if I go to another Toyota dealership. Calling the Bariel Toyota to see what kind of wheel balancing equipment they use. Wait for an answer. However, anyone know what shop provided wheel balancing with Hawkea QuickPlate in my zip code of 15202. Or I need to make some calls to several shops to find out who has this.

 

Sorry to hear this. FWIW Toyota and their case managers think that a water pump leaking at 35,000 miles is normal too.

They're all probably too busy trying to figure out how to replace 6 million fuel pumps in an orderly manner...lol

 

I started to have a similar problem earlier in the year. I forgot what the exact explanation was but I do know that they did an alignment that brought the toe angle in a little bit more than normal to "pre-load" the front suspension. I think i got that right... Anyway after they did that I never had an issue.

 

^ Problem with that is Toe Kills Tires.

 

Okay! Several different answers. I need to know if the wheels needs balance or get alignment check out. That's what I need to figure it out from there.