4Runner wanders on highway plus vibration at steering wheel at 65 mph

Apparently I hear the vibration at steering wheel between 60-65 mph is a common problem with 4Runners. Have taken car to 3 different dealerships. 2 of them performed an alignment. One of them blamed the issue on tires. Replaced the tires last week, car is still experiencing wandering on highway and vibration. Anyone else experienced this problem. And what is the solution. For reference my 4runner is completely stock

 

I think I recall you have an SR5 premium. I would suggest, based off what you have done so far, Would be to locate a place that can perform road force balancing of your new tires as a starting point.

My 2021 SR5 premium (Sold) had Dunlop tires from the factory and, in my opinion, was a terrible tire for the application. If I had not kept it, they would have been changed fairly quickly.

 

Mine came stock with the Bridgestone duelers. Changed them out for Firestone destination at2s and still experiencing problems

 

I had an issue with vibration too with the factory Bridgestone duelers. Dealer balanced them twice and did an alignment and that did not fix it. I wanted some AT tires anyways so got some Cooper Rugged Trek's and the vibration is gone. Discount tire gave me a fair amount of trade in for the Dueler’s.

the staff at Discount talked to me for some time on explaining how they were going to balance them to make it perfect. They did a really good job.

Did you purchase the Firestone’s or did the dealer put them on?

 

I had vibrations once when my tires were at the end of life. Normally vibrations at certains speed means bad tire balancing. Maybe you could try to add tire pressure to 36psi -38psi and see if it changes anything.

 

With my experience after a proper road force balance my 4runners have no vibration regardless the tires.

 

You have to get them balanced. A nice independent shop that knows what they doing will sort out the vibration.
Alignment should take care of the wandering but it will still wander a bit.

 

The needle bearing noise can happen to stock 4runners or lifted ones. Mine started making the noise intermittently with 80 miles on the odo on the way home from the dealer. When I lifted it around 2.5 inches, the frequency of its occurrence stayed the same.

I have read some say the needle bearing tolerances can lead to steering wheel shimmy. However, I cant understand how the noise or vibration at the diff/driveshaft interface would translate to steering wheel shimmy. I haven’t seen any explanations as to how it could lead to it either.

Knock wood, I’ve never had any problems with steering wheel shimmy. But given the very soft and cushy lower control arm bushings that allow a lot of movement, I can see how the 4runner is sensitive to wheel balance issues. I think (theorizing) alignment can also play a role in all this, as I can almost imagine certain toe angles causing differences in rearward pre-load on the LCA bushings (from rolling friction) that could or hurt or help how much that LCA floats in the bushings. Totally spitballing with that theory though. Caster angles also play a role in steering stability.

 

Get tires forced balanced at Discount Tire. I also keep tire pressure at around 33-35 cold. After a bit on highway pressure goes up to around 37.