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Steering wheel wobble at highway speeds (opinions on next steps)


Kazza
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Hi guys,

 

I put 15" steel rims on my 2001 QX4, with 31" tires.. The rims are Chevy lug centric, so I also installed the proper acorn style lug nuts and bought 100 to 108mm hub rings to close the gap between hub and rim. I gave the rims to the local tire shop to mount and balance brand new Falken Wildpeak AT3W's but I had a steering wobble straight off the bat at highway speeds 80km+. Previous to installing the new wheel/tire combo, I had just redone my full front end - repack hubs, shocks, springs, ball joints etc, and had an alignment done with my old summer tires and I had no steering wobble. Therefore, I was/am confident i can isolate the wobble to the new wheels/tires. I've just got the car back off the shop again, they found that all 4 wheels were out of balance (even though they balanced them before) and so all new wheel weights put on. Ive just taken it for a test drive and I still have the same steering wobble. It was a different guy who balanced the wheels this time and he told me that the tires are too big and that it will be difficult/impossible to have a smooth ride on them regardless if balanced or not.

 

Looking for opinions on next steps here.. is it worth my while going to a shop that specializes in tires/balancing or is the guy at the shop right and I need to live with this inconvenience?

 

Thanks in advance for input.

 

EDIT: I should add, I've booked in to a different shop in town next week who have the Road Force system, I believe they are the only shop that have this machine so hopefully they can either sort the issue or give me a better explanation of what the problem is.

 

 

Edited by Kazza
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I'll preface my response by saying I am no means an expert on this - so take it for what it is....

 

I was going to suggest a road force balance so I would wait until that is complete without going much further. That said it's probably worth jacking your front end up and double checking your wheel bearings for extra play as well as making sure your ball joints, tie rods etc. don't have excessive play just to definitively rule that out. It may also be worth playing around with different tire pressures (plus or minus 5psi or so) to see if you can dial the wobble down a bit that way. 

 

Were your steelies brand new or did you pick them up used? Are you confident a wheel or 2 isn't bent/warped?

 

How bad is the wobble? I also have steelies and 31's and I have a tiny bit of wobble at freeway speeds but it's so minor I have to be actively thinking about it to even notice. Steel wheels and oversized AT/MT tires are notoriously hard to balance so it may be the nature of the best...

 

Hope that helps.

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I'm not a tire guy either, but I have not had any wobble issues with the 31" tires on my '93, despite them being mounted and balanced by muppets. "They just do that" sounds like an excuse.

 

I'm not familiar with hub spacers, but I would check the fit on those. No use having a balanced wheel if it's mounted off-center. +1 on checking the wheels for runout. If the wheels look okay, check the tires too. A damaged or defective tire could have a high spot in the tread even if the wheel is true. Have a look at the front end bushings (control arms and rack) while you're under there if those weren't on your list before.

 

All four wheels being out of balance the second time is odd. Check your wheel weights. When I had mine mounted/balanced, the muppets used the wrong kind of weights for the rims. One actually fell off in my hand when I went to put the wheels on. Had I run them like that, I'm sure I would've had wobble for days. I wouldn't expect a domestic steel rim to trip them up, but I didn't expect the local shop to send mine home with the weights falling off, either.

Hopefully tire shop #2 is better at what they do.

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On 6/3/2022 at 8:10 PM, Slartibartfast said:

Check your wheel weights. When I had mine mounted/balanced, the muppets used the wrong kind of weights for the rims. One actually fell off in my hand when I went to put the wheels on. Had I run them like that, I'm sure I would've had wobble for days. I wouldn't expect a domestic steel rim to trip them up, but I didn't expect the local shop to send mine home with the weights falling off, either.

Hopefully tire shop #2 is better at what they do.

I have almost an identical story.  A month after new tires I got the death wobble at around 55 mph, I figured it was the suspension.  Friend of mine suggested I have the tires re-balanced, I did at a different shop that said a weight came off and said no wonder they were of poor quality and replaced all of them.  However, they also said that the non lead weights are crap.

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@The_Oregonian the suspension parts you mentioned are all new - didn't have the wobble after replacing suspension parts and still running my old summer alloy/wheel combo.

 

The steel wheels are old though, from an old chevy. Not signs of impact damage, rim beads all looked nice and round when I resprayed them. The tire shop with road force said they could check if a rim is damaged though when they are doing the balance tomorrow.

 

@Slartibartfast hub rings fill the gap between the hub and the wheel bore, they are the right size for the job so wheels should all be centered properly on the hubs. No wheel weights had fallen off, I checked them all before going back to the shop. All wheels got rebalanced on the 2nd attempt anyway so kinda rules that one out. 

 

The only things I've not changed on the front are the control arms or the rack bushings.. so this could be the issue. Again strange if it is suspension related because, as I mentioned earlier, my old summer wheel/tire combo didn't have the wobble. The extra weight of running wider steelies with bigger/wider tires could be a highlighting a problem with these bushings though.

 

I guess I will see what comes out of the road force balance tomorrow. The new shop are telling me they will be able to diagnose if it's a bad tire, improper tire mounting or a bad wheel. 

 

Thnx for input so far, will report back soon.

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Update: had the road force done today, they rebalanced all 4 tires (3rd time now), the wobble is better but not gone. It's now wobbling in a smaller range ~75 to ~100km/h. I haven't called them back but they didn't mention anything about issues with the wheels/tires. 

 

I'm a bit at a loss right now, I think I'm going to put the oem rims/with my old tires back on and drive it to check the difference again for my own sanity. I'm sure i had zero wobble before.

 

I didn't get a print out or anything from the road force balance, they just gave me a receipt for the work.

 

Not sure on next steps really. Paid for an alignment and 2x balance now (2 different shops). I don't really want to just live with it because the tires are new and were expensive. I'm expecting a smooth ride.

 

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3 hours ago, Kazza said:

 I think I'm going to put the oem rims/with my old tires back on and drive it to check the difference again for my own sanity. I'm sure i had zero wobble before.

 

That is what I would do.

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Good thinking trying the old wheels again for a sanity check. If it's fine with the old wheels, I would try swapping the new ones around to different positions to see if you can make the wobble better or worse, in hopes of tracking the problem to a fault with a single wheel.

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