Steering wheel vibration after new wheels and tires

Hey guys needing a little bit of help trying to figure my steering wheel vibration at 50+ mph after installing method mr314 and Toyo atIII 35x12.5x18 tire.

I had them originally mounted and balanced at a shop, and had some steering wheel vibration at 50+ mph. I brought them back and they rechecked the balance and said they were out of balance just a bit. This didn't fix the issue. I took it to another shop who took all the weights off and balanced them. Same issue was maybe slightly better.

I was wondering if I need hub centric rings, but searching these wheels they are 110.5mm bore which is the same as the tundra (at least that's what my google searches say)

I have also heard of people using the wrong lugs possibly and wanted to double check that mine were the correct type for this wheel. They are

$54 West Coast Wheel Accessories 14X1.5 Bulge Acorn Spline Lug Nuts 1.38" 5 Lug Install Kit Black

these.

Any recommendation on what to do or to try to fix this issue?

also I had the Bilstein 6112 and 5160 shocks installed about two weeks before the tires and don't remember the vibration on stock wheels so I believe it rules out the lift.


Pics of truck

 

Easy things first.

Have you jacked up each wheel, loosened the lugs and then retorqued them yourself (to a reasonable torque value which I consider 100 lb-ft or less)?

 

I have not, I do remember seeing that mentioned in a thread while searching. I will try that first, thanks!

 

It's probably your wheel balance still. I had the same problem and after four attempts at having the wheels balanced, much frustration and looking into other causes/fixes, I got a tech who actually knew what he was doing and it went away. It is amazing how many of this new generation are incompetent. Get the head tire tech at your place and tell him you want dynamic balancing, worked for me at least. Wheel Balancing 101 - Static vs Dynamic Wheel Balancing | E-Quipfix Ltd

 

Mine does the same thing. Been meaning to get to it but haven't gotten that far yet. It's a balance issue.

 

Been chasing a wheel vibration since i put on Pro wheels with the stock Michelins. Had them rebalanced but didnt seem to fix it.Starts about 48 thru about 52 or so.then smooths out. Its like glass at 60. Never had a vehicle with so many tire balance problems as this truck.

 

Echo that it’s most likely a balance issue, possibly an out of round tire. Tire balance issues start around 45-50MPH. Bigger the tire, the harder they are to balance.

 

Rotate tires see if vibration changes.

 

Road Force Balancing/Tire Matching will minimize the vibration....
https://danthetireman.com/blog/article/what-is-road-force-balance

 

X2 ^^, I took mine to DTC to get road balanced and my vibration went away.

 

As others have stated it is most likely a balance issue, but I do believe in the proper torquing of the lugs.

I had small vibrations when I went to larger tires and after a competent balance and proper torque on the lugs the issue was resolved.

 

Probably your tires. Just put on AT3’s as well in 35x12.5r18 on my pro. All four tires were completely out of round from the get go. No balancing fixing that.

 

What's your wheel offset?

 

Went thru the same thing with my 4runner Pro. But not my tundra Pro. Everything went fine with the 4runner Pro. Tire place put in a new road force balance machine where I deal with all the time. That seems to be the only way to get tires balanced correctly.

 

sounds exactly like mine speed wise that is.

Interesting, hopefully not the case. I’d hate to have to get rid of the tire because of this.

18

been busy at work and getting ready for vacation. Hopefully able to check the lugs soon and if it doesn’t fix it I’ll try another balance.

 

I just put new 275/70/18 Goodyear Ultraterrains on last week as my Terra Grappler G2’s couldn’t be balanced correctly after 3 tries. So Discount Tire agreed to swap them and the GY’s have now already been road forced balanced twice in the last week by them and still not fixed.

First time with the GY’s the vibration was awful from 50-70mph and took the Store Manager with me for a drive since I already felt bad coming back over and over. He agreed they weren’t balanced right and took almost 2 hours to get them balanced a 2nd time. When I left as they were closing I thought it was finally fixed as it was smooth as the day I drove it off the lot at 50, 55 and 65mph. Then as soon as I hit the interstate at 70mph the vibration was back, just not nearly as bad. Drove it about 40 miles at 70-75mph and it vibrated non stop. Haven’t decided if I’m going to take it back there or just bite the bullet and take it to a tire shop a buddy of mine owns to see if he can fix it.

Discount Tire tried to tell me that it’s simply because it’s an E rated tire and if it couldn’t balance I needed to look at moving away from a 10ply tire. I gave him the dumbest look and I think he realized I wasn’t buying that. They are some of the nicest people and their customer service is top notch, but I’m at the point of frustration and wanting to not let them touch the truck again.

 

I'm going to disagree with public opinion here and say it might not be your balance. It's possible it is your needle bearing and the new, larger, more aggressive tires are exacerbating an existing issue that you didn't previously notice.

I agree with starting with a road force balance, but I would bet $5 you still experience the issue after.

Look for the ECGS clamshell bushing for the Tundra.

 

I think one of the tires is bad. I don't buy a needbearing issue because its too coincidental…no issues before tires and now you have issues…its a tire and I doubt it’s a rim either.

BTW: I have a new set of 275/70/18 ATIIIs and they balanced up just fine on my stock TRD wheels but that doesn’t really mean anything other than I got lucky.

1) Re-torque: What are the lugs torqued to? I have had luck with re-torquing and adding just a smidge (1/4 turn) more twist and having that little extra solve my vibration issues.

2) Move the fronts to the rear. See if the vibration goes from the steering wheel to more of it in your seat. Vibration in the steering wheel is typically the front wheels and vibration in your seat typically corresponds to the rear. That will tell you if it is for sure the tires, although I’m fairly certain its one of those front tires. You could also go a bit further and narrow down which tire but that’s a bunch of ass-pain to move the tires around one by one to figure it out.

3) If that doesn’t work, take the tires back and swap them out. Sometimes these larger tires wont balance, period. KO2s are infamous for this, even though they get rave reviews.

 

Several attempts to balance and you still think it's a bad tire or the lugs aren't properly torqued?

Changing from street tires to an E load range AT will make a needle bearing issue apparent.

If one of the tires were out of round one of of two separate tire shops he's been to multiple times would have caught it.

Maybe the 5th or 6th rebalance will fix it!

OP - get in a flat, straight road. Drive at 55-65 while in 4H. Does the vibration go away while in 4H? If so, needle bearing.

 

With the Hunter Road Force Balancer, you get a lot of information about the tire/wheel balance and runout. It is an expensive machine so a lot of shops don't have one. You are trying to match the high/low and heavy/light spots in the wheel and the ones on the tire to miminize the total variation. A good, trained technician can mitigate a lot of balance issues. They need to be able to interpret the info and it likely will require them to dismount the tire from the wheel, rotate it on the wheel and remount the tire. It should be checked again and that may need to be repeated. They might even need to switch the tire to a different wheel to get the best results. Many techs/shops will just say good to go and leave it. Also, your most skilled technicians are not usually mounting tires. You should go to a good shop to get the best results.

With this equipment, the amount of road force and run out are quantifed for each tire/wheel. The general guideline from Hunter is a max of 26 lbs of road force for passenger/suv tires and 39 lbs of force for LT tires so you can see if there is one particular tire and or wheel that is causing an issue. This info can point out a bad tire or wheel. The tire shop may not volunteer this info - you should ask for it. You should know that big tires and wheels will have more variation and big, cheap tires and wheels will have even more variation.

 

Good info. Many shops will be more likely to throw an insane amount of weights on a wheel instead of doing a proper balance or replacing the tires. There are more unbalanceable tires out there than you would think.

 

Great info. Many shops don't have the Road Force balance machine, and it really is necessary for proper balancing the first time. I've seen dozens of threads like this and the solution was Road Force balance.

About seven years ago with my '05 Tundra mounting Geolandars at Discount I thought Road Force was always done, but no, that cost extra and I didn't ask for it. First freeway drive had vibes, took it back for the Road Force and no vibes.

That same Discount shop mounted Discoverer AT3 LT LT265/60/18's on the Runner a few weeks ago and this time I asked if Road Force was included, it was, smooth as glass. I imagine the more sidewall you have the more Road Force balancing is needed.

 

Update:

Today After work I loosened all the lugs and torqued them back myself. I took it for a drive and it did not help at all. Took the truck back to my shop and rotated the tires and torqued them again. This seemed to fix the problem! I don't feel any vibration at all. So it's something with at least one of the tires that was on the front to start. I'm assuming I need to take it to a shop that I know for sure has road force balancing. Gotta be a balance issue or bad tire, right?

 

sounds like a defective tire. I just had tires replaced after running them for 9k miles, kept having balance issues over and over. Shop gave me full cost I paid for them and I got new shoes- super smooth now.

 

I’m no expert but my money is on a bad tire if the rotation fixed it.

 

Yep…and it appears so. I also believe most of the dudes mounting and balancing tries are not very proficient.

But yet you think a needle bearing failed simultaneously with the new tires? Like I said, I don't believe the coincidence aspect.

So yes, we can both have different opinions…no need to get cross over it.

 

Yep, definitely one of those 2 tires.

 

I had a 10 ply Wildpeak wobble issue, 58-62 mph, disappeared when I added air to the tires. No idea why. But I understand the E rated tires take more air to match the factory P rated tires load carrying, 30/32 factory, needed 40/42 on the new ones. May have been tires just working themselves in or the higher pressure, no idea, but worth a check.

 

I had this issue when I bought Anthem wheels using the stock tires 285/55/20 KOs.

Four regular balances (at 2 different tire shops), 3 road force balances, they never could get rid of the steering wheel shimmy.
Tried ET lugs, still shimmied.
Moved front to back, front right to rear left, every combination still had a shimmy.
Put the stock TSS wheels back on, they balanced fine and no shimmy.

Documented everything, had written statements from each balance attempt, and was emailing Anthem throughout the process.
They offered to let me return the wheels and gave me a full refund, shipping and all.

Still running the stock TSS wheels now.

 

No one is cross, and I'm still not buying that it's a tire issue. I explained clearly how new tires might make an existing needle bearing issue more apparent.