HIGHWAY VIRBATION / HOP

Long story but there you go. PLEASE READ EVERYTHING I DID BEFORE COMMENTING
1. Brand new truck purchased January 2024
2. added a RC leveling puck and weld 20 x 9 + 20 wheels & NITTO RECONS 275/65/20
had a constant hop / vibration from 55+

A. Road force balanced the tires - NO CHANGE
B. Swapped out the rear wheels with FUEL REBELS 20 X 9 +0 AND factory FALKEN tires - no change
C. put the other 2 fuel wheels on the front - no change
D. Ordered AMERICAN MADE HUB CENTRIC RINGS - NO CHANGE
E. SWITCHED FROM ET TO NON CENTERING LUG NUTS - NO CHANGE
F. Completely disconnected the front sway bar to eliminate any chance of a weird preload situation - NO CHANGE

I already sold my stock wheels ( 20" black trd ) so i went and bought another set last night as a last ditch effort before putting the truck back to 100% stock. Installed the used 20" OEM wheels with tires that have ~ 30,000 miles of use and 90%+ of the vibration went away.

Has anyone gone through something like this ? I'm on the fence as to what to do now
OPTIONS:
1. Keep the USED TRD wheels I bought and swap over my Nitto Recons and leave it alone ( assuming no vibration ) Sell Welds and take a loss
2. Remove the leveling pucks and try re-installing the welds and see if the vibration is gone

Please advise if anyone else has had a similar problem and how you resolved it.

 

This sounds like the old bed bounce issues that plagued the 2nd gen. Concrete highways did it, so I had to switch lanes to find a better portion of the highway. Speed would also impact the bounce, I found a happy medium at about 72mph on the highway, asphalt portions were often smoother. If I'm mistaken about this, then I apologize.

 

So after installing the oem wheels and tires your issue went away?

I don't know much about suspension mods, but using basic logic, your aftermarket wheels or tires are defective because issue went away after you switched back to oem wheels

 

Are the Nitto Recons you put on a E rated LT tire? Maybe the leveling puck put the UCA at a just right weird angle and with the combo of having a much heavier tire maybe that caused some kind of perfect frequency to cause a hop. One thing you didn't mention is if you got the truck aligned after the 1.75" lift puck installed. Might include alignment results to help some of the ultra savvy members help you that know that stuff well. Knowing the quality of Rough country maybe the 1.75" advertised is for a hybrid and for non-hybrid you end up with 2"+? If you're flirting with 2"+ of actual lift you maybe need aftermarket UCA to ensure you can get proper wheel alignment especially caster. Just throwing ideas out there that maybe a lighter tire makes the issue less noticeable. Anything rough country would by my first suspicion.

 

Yes I left out a couple things, we played with different alignment specs with no change, The tires are NON LT tires and the total weight of the AFTERMARKET WHEEL TIRE is within 2lbs of the stock. NITTO RECONS 275/65/20 116T "C" LOAD TIRE
As for DEFECTIVE wheels / tires I noted that the problem was the exact same with 2 different sets of wheels and 2 different sets of tires, one set of wheels had the brand new perfect factory tires on them..

 

Are the lug nuts the correct ones for the wheel? Sounds like a slight out of round issue and the wrong lug nuts can get a wheel off center. Just something to check

 

not an issue if he has centric rings on, which he does.

Im guessing the preloaded suspension is not liking the extra weight

 

OP said the tire and wheel are within 2lbs of stock..

 

If it is like the dreaded Tundra Bed Bounce then that really sucks, hope you find the cause

 

well shit

 

Did it vibrate/hop when it was in stock configuration?.....

 

Well if 90% of the problem went away with stock wheel/tire set up, you know it’s them terrible looking weld wheels you got there buddy. And the puck lift probably the left over 10%.

 

Appreciate the feedback, my actual lift increase was ~ 2.25” so you may be into something.

 

I didn’t want the #ME TOO standard all black methods or Fuels.
PS GOD BLESS TEXAS

 

Skeptical you were able to get a alignment within spec if you got a 2.25" puck lift. Caster would be barely possible to be in spec with out some aftermarket UCA's. Also the UCA not being able to travel as far may be causing hop. Might be a chunkier tire that is making it more noticeable and prevalent and compared to the OEM tires that practically have zero tread on them. That 2" mark is the fine line where you do or don't need UCA and you might have found the line. Still odd the OEM wheels and tires make it go away, but you should plan on some UCA's and possibly extended travel CV axels if you are in the 2.25" lift range. Assuming you actually weighed the two tires rather than compare published weights as we all know the OEM tires are not what you get off the rack, so it could still be heavier than 2lb's (if you weighed them then is what it is).

 

If you want to run bigger tires with minimum vibration/hop get a set of TRD Pro 18" wheels and tire up to where you're comfortable. Toyota 4x4's are very sensitive to offset and balance, factory wheels are hub centric. All 3rd gen wheels except Pro are 60 mm positive offset. A lot of aftermarket wheels are 0 offset which is about 2" more than the Pro's at 47 mm and it messes up the suspension angles. Looks cool with a nice wide stance or "poke" but really hard on components and pick up more vibration and shock from the road. Any puck lift will compromise ride quality also.

 

You only tried balancing the tires the one time???

 

Which suspension does the truck have? Hitachi, Bilstein, Fox, Air, TRD? Does it have the red axles or black ones?

Is the vibration felt in the seat or the steering wheel?

 

BLACK AXLES, TRD SPORT PACKAGE ( BASIC 4X4 )
Vibration is everywhere, steering slight, dash, pedals and seats. truck is now back to 100% stock and headed to the dealer.

 

Going through the same with a set of trd pro wheels. Had the OEM falkens on them and hopped on the highway. Had the tires rebalanced and it didn’t go away. Installed new tires didn’t go away. Had the new tires rebalanced didn’t go away. Had an alignment didn’t go away. Put the trd or wheels and tires back on and it mostly goes away but it’s still there.

I’m still troubleshooting but maybe somebody here has a solution.

It varies in intensity so I don’t really think it’s a balance issue, but it occurs at 70+.

 

It’s crazy, I’ve spent a ton of money only to have my truck back to stock with the same problem. Hopefully
The dealer finds a bad part so I can put the truck back to how I had it.

 

Hey, I think you have great taste and I'm sad you're dealing with this because I'm looking at similar Weld wheels (Weld Ledge 6 20x9 +20) and the same non-LT Nitto Recon Grapplers 275/65R20 and a similar 1.5" front level. Your setup is pretty much the same and exactly what I'm going for... a lightweight, good-looking setup with non-Method / non-Fuel wheels and perfect poke.

Super bummed to read about your problems. It's been a few months since your last post - so where are you now? If the Welds are back on and everything is good, please post some more pics!

 

I had a similar problem and finally determined it wasn’t a tire balance issue. It was a tire out of round issue. Balancing multiple times helped but an out of round tire will never run smooth. It was also more noticeable on certain road surfaces. The way we found the out of round tire was to visually watch the tread on the balancer. You could see it going up and down. So you might check for out of round tires as you try to diagnose this problem. Good luck.