Can it hurt the truck if the tires/wheels are unbalanced?

Hi guys,

I'm new to this truck thing.. I'm on my second set of Falken Wildpeaks on my brand new 4Runner, and Discount Tire just can't seem to get them to stay balanced with their "roadforce" machines. It's almost as if the tires get worse as they break in. The first set was in stock size, P rated, not super out of balance but a little, so I had them rebalance. After a few days I was still feeling some shake right around 60 MPH so back I went. At this point Falken warrantied the tires so I went with a new set.. decided to try the (much) heavier C rated 275's this time, and they're even worse (not surprised). It's like they seemed OK on the way home, but after a few days, I'm definitely noticing a lot of shake from 50-60, seems even worse with these heavier tires. Thoughts? Ideas? Could something be wrong with the truck itself? 3500 miles on it so far.. I have taken it on the trails a few times but nothing too extreme.. and not running into any large rocks at speed that would affect the alignment (that I could imagine).

So, is it possible to balance these things? If not... even if the shake doesn't personally bother me, surely all of that shaking can't be good for the truck, right? I'm thinking premature wear on bearings, tires, bushings, etc?

I'm just trying to figure out if some shake around 60 MPH is the norm with large heavy tires, or if should keep trying.. I'm sure the tire shop already hates me but what can you do??

Thanks!

 

Friend of my has a Chevy Suburban and went through three sets of Falken wildpeaks tires. last time he went back he changed to a different tire. No problem with balancing now.

 

I have e rated 295’s and my steering wheel barely has any noticeable vibration down the road. Ive noticed a lot of people have issues with the falkens. I’m sure the shaking would be bad, but over a long period of time in my opinion.

 

Those vibrations are putting extra wear on your suspension components (think all rubber bushings) and your wheel bearings. How much extra wear it will put on your car depends on how long you keep it that way and how strong the forces are. I personally could not live with such an issue on a modern and new vehicle like ours. Try to get those tires road force balanced at another place - and if they fail - get rid of the tires for something better.

 

Seems weird to me that their machine says the tire is balanced, but then after a day or two my truck is wiggling down the road.... I'm at a loss.

 

Maybe the weights aren't sticking and getting thrown? Do you have stock or aftermarket wheels... and if aftermarket, are they by chance lug centric instead of hub centric? If so, it could be the wheel coming slightly off center (and they make hub spacer rings to potentially fix this).

Seems odd that the balancing would work, but then start shaking again within a couple days after. Might have something else going on too, like a loose tie rod end, steering rack, or wheel bearing (though again odd that balancing would fix the issue, if even for only a short while; so seems unlikely).

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm tempted to have Toyota look at the alignment under warranty, but have a feeling that it won't help and I'll just be out some more coin. The truck only has 4000 miles on it and they are the factory TRD Pro / Venture wheels.

I want to note that I'm not *sure* if the tires were perfectly balanced right after the install, it's just that I didn't notice the shake. This last time they switched the tires, I was sure to pay attention to the shake, and I did notice a very slight amount, but it was something I could live with. I'm pretty sure it's gotten worse since then, but it's hard to tell because the shake is so dependent on other conditions such as the road and speed I'm traveling. In other words, maybe the tires haven't come "unbalanced" but instead maybe I just didn't notice as much at first.

 

I would put money on it being a balance problem, or a tire problem, Jmho though.

 

I'd say it's time to change tire brand. I've not had any issues with my Falken tires, but if I were in your shoes, I'd try something else.

 

Appreciate y'alls thoughts.

Starting to think maybe the first set of P265's was just a bad batch, out of round maybe. And maybe these C275's are just too heavy? I dunno. Seems like there are plenty out there running heavy tires on 4Runners without issue, but at the same time I almost can't be surprised that it's so hard to balance the 58 lb 275. Perhaps with heavier tires, the margin of error with respect to manufacturing is much finer, and maybe Falken just doesn't do a great job? I saw lots of mixed reports with the P265, but decided to try them. To be honest, the shake was livable.. but I thought it should be buttery smooth so we replaced those tires. The shake with these 275's is definitely worse. Argh who knows..

Some data for those interested as I'm researching replacement (stinks there aren't a lot of 275 or c-rated offerings out there):

toyo at3 265 70 17 p 10.7 x 31.7 42lb 13/32
cpr at3lt 265 70 17 c 10.6 x 31.6 47lb 16/32
fal at3w 265 70 17 p 10.8 x 31.7 47lb 14/32
fal at3w 275 70 17 c 10.8 x 32.4 58lb 18/32
bfg k02 265 70 17 c 10.7 x 31.7 46lb 15/32
bfg k02 275 70 17 e 11.0 x 32.2 55lb 15/32
bfg k02 285 70 17 c 11.5 x 32.8 51lb 15/32

Interesting how heavy the p265 wildpeak are. Looks like I might give the stock size k02's in c rating a shot.. if they give me the option. Hoping they don't try to charge me a third time for mounting tires. I really like these C rated 275 Wildpeaks, if they were lighter I'd say they're the perfect tire... I just want them to work! We'll see what Discount Tire says...

 

I am running 285/70/17 Falken Wildpeak M/T’s and have no problems with shake or shimmy’s, and these are probably one of the heaviest tires out there in this size.

 

Are you still on your stock rims ? I just dealt with a very similar issue on my 1990 and KO2’s. Bought some new steel rims, brand new ko2’s and for six months I swore it was the new tires, same issue, shaking after balancing them 4 times. A few weeks ago guy tried again, 2 would not balance on his machine. I came back we switched all the tires back to my factory rims. Instant cure ! No shaking, straight as an arrow smooth as a whistle.

So it might be worth investigating if you bought aftermarket rims. I’m shopping for new rims now but being more informed about hub centric, lug centric deal.

 

I'm a long time, pedantic car guy, so I am very familiar with wheels, offsets, hub-centric, and wheel-centric issues. I am using the stock wheels.

Yeah, I hear you SlvrSlug, which is why I'm so stumped. They should work. Maybe one of these is out of round. I really want to keep the 275's because they look bad ass. We shall see. I'll update.

 

It's the tires. The Wildpeaks are notorious for not being able to balance properly. I'd go with either the Cooper or Toyo from your list.

Nice Shot!

 

Not on your list, but probably should be is the General Grabber AT2 or ATX. It has a very similar tread pattern as the BFG. They also have the severe snow rating and IIRC are decently lighter than the BFG. Between 3 vehicles, I'm currently on my 4th set.

 

You *should* be fine with 275/70/17 tires.

 

Running into a similar issue with my wife’s 2020 ORP. We have had the falkens balanced 5 difference times including a road force balance and they absolutely cannot get the small shimmy/vibration out at 55-60. I tried to have all four warrantied but they denied the claim saying the tire tread was over 1/32nd worn. We are stuck with them for a bit unfortunately.

 

^This. These tires are notorious for having balancing problems on the T4R.

You could try rotating fronts to back and see if it makes a difference or changes. Then you could possibly isolate the problem to being a balancing issue.

 

Dang, sorry to hear. I actually had run the 265's for well over a month when I warrantied them. Discount Tire said they were *right at* the 2/32 worn that Falken allows. That's odd that your shop said 1/32. That said, at that point for me (2/32) I had already balanced a second time without good results, so I was going to raise hell and high-water if they didn't fix the issue.

If you want 275/70/17 (next size up), I say go for it. So far I have *very mild* rubbing, but it doesn't look like it's anything a butter knife can't fix. I'm also at stock height.

 

Not one bit of wiggle on the way to work this morning. Didn't notice much yesterday evening either.

Anyone else ever get this? Unbalanced feeling steering wheel shimmy sometimes, but then the next trip none. It's like if I turn the wheel and hit a road imperfection, the wheel starts to wobble. But if miss that imperfection the wheel is fine and truck is relatively smooth. Ugh this balance issue will be the end of me lmao..

If you can't tell I'm trying hard to keep these 275's lol...

 

What air pressure are you running in the tires? Also, Discount should be match mounting the tires in addition to road forcing them, if they're balancing the tires correctly. Most places don't match mount because it takes too long, but it's gotten me out of plenty of vibration issues in the past. Another trick is to take accelerating and stopping as gently as possible for at least 24 hours after having tires mounted in order to allow the tire paste to fully dry. I hope this helps.

If you are able to get the tires match mounted and road forced with the correct air pressure and they still shake, I'd send them back. Falken's warranty gives you the first 2/32 for balance issues. If you go over that amount of usage, have Discount call their warranty department to see if they can make an exception since they're your second set of Falkens.

I wish you were out here in SoCal, I'd match mount the tires for you.

 

Do what now?

 

When you have tires installed, the installer will/should line both tire beads with a tire paste or soap to help keep from tearing the beads. It takes about a day or so to fully dry, depending on weather and temperature. If you have to come to a sharp stop or are accelerating hard right after having the tires installed, there is a chance that the tires can slip on the wheels. This makes the tires that slip fall out of balance since the tire has moved on the wheel from where it was originally balanced.

 

Where are you located.

 

I live in Riverside. My work is in Fontana.

 

I would agree that most don't know or don't care, because it takes time and time is money. The only problem is, if you have multiple customers coming back with vibration issues, you aren't saving any time in the long run if you did it right the first time. Plus, you wouldn't have as many upset customers.

For OE. It's a little different. You could have a dot all "willy nilly" on the outside facing sidewall, but have the actual light spot dot on the inner facing sidewall depending on the mounting and balancing equipment the vehicle manufacturer uses. Conicity also often comes into play in OE applications, which is a whole other monster in itself, so tires that you see on new vehicles on the lot are usually all balanced by robot operated machines, unless the wheels and tires were added as an aftermarket option by the dealership.

Vehicle manufacturers usually have tire and wheel mounting/balancing equipment on-site at their assembly plants or use a 3rd party company that specializes in mounting and balancing OE wheels and tires that get shipped to the assembly plants. So, it's not always the tire manufacturer's fault when new tires on a new vehicle have a vibration issue. Sometimes it is though.

 

I could see that, but it's really hard to tell. How an OE tire is mounted and balanced can also depend on if the tire was designed for a certain wheel type and it was changed last second or mid production. The ever changing vehicle manufacturer's engineering specs (i.e. Firestones on the Explorer fiasco) can also play a part.

It wasn't Firestone's fault that Ford's engineers lowered the inflation pressures without consulting Firestone to make the Explorer have better on road handling manners, but it did cause the tires that were designed to be inflated to a specific psi to become more easily underinflated/overloaded when your everyday driver never checked their tire pressures, and Firestone unfortunately took the brunt of the negative publicity for Ford's mistakes.

So, it's really hard to tell, since different tire manufacturers have different dots for different reasons, but I agree that the willy nilly dots don't necessarily leave a confident taste in one's proverbial mouth.

 

Haha, that's the one. Sorry. I'm at work and my mind is all over the place right now. I'm glad that you made it through that safely! I was pretty young during that catastrophe, but I remember it was boggling people's minds at the time. You have tires that had their psi set lower at the factory, that put it just above acceptable inflation levels and then your normal, everyday driver didn't pay attention to their tires' air pressure (as most people don't) and it made for the perfect storm of tire failures to occur.

P.S. to the OP: I'm sorry to going off topic here. Be sure to try to get your tires match mounted if you wish to keep them. Otherwise, have Discount warranty them out and go with another brand of your choosing. Match mounting will help eliminate the chances of your wheels being out of spec as well. If you have trouble with the warranty process, PM me, and I can try to help walk you through it.

 

Little update:

TMPS says the pressure is at 34 psi, which is a little above the door sticker's 32 psi recommendation. Since the tires are larger than OE and "C Rated" I feel like I should probably do a chalk test to determine the correct pressure to run. For now I'm not super stressing it until I get the balance right; I doubt 2 psi is causing any material issue.

So far is more of the same. I'm basically trying to decide if they're livable or not. I don't want to hurt the truck, obviously, which is why I'm here. But, on the way to work today I didn't notice anything annoying. Every once in a while I notice a little shake here and there right in the "trouble range" of 50-60 mph, but it's not bad. It really only happens if I'm just hovering around at that speed, which of course does seem to be the speed I travel for the most part on my daily commutes. However if I just accelerate past 55-60 and get up to 70+, I'll never really notice any issue at all.

I'm honestly starting to wonder if this is just as good as it gets with big, heavy tires. When others say they have no shake, maybe they're just more forgiving than I am. Even if I was convinced 100% that the tires were perfefctly balanced, I bet I could still complain that the truck and steering wheel shakes and vibrates more than with stock tires, simply because the tires are larger, heavier, track with the road imperfections more, and have stiffer sidewalls which results in more bumps being transmitted to the chassis and steering wheel. In other words, when people say that they have "buttery smooth" E rated 285's, I question their judgement because I just don't believe it. Of course, I'm still a noob here, but I think it's just different perspectives. One guy's other vehicle may be a 1970 Ford Truck whereas my other vehicle is a fairly new, well-maintained BMW. I've never driven a real body-on-frame truck that felt anywhere near as smooth as a luxury passenger car. And I, at this point, just have to believe that one would notice a rougher ride from larger, heavier tires, even if perfectly balanced.

All that said, if I think too hard about it while driving, sure.. it almost feels like the truck is rolling down the road on not-perfectly-round wheels/tires some times.. but when I think about that, I honestly can't tell you if it's the tires or the road that's causing the rough ride.

If I do take her back to the shop because I decide it's just not good enough, my first aim will be to see if one of the tires is a little out of round. I'm almost hoping that's the case because that should be fairly easy to fix (replace). Only thing is, if an out of round tire is my issue, then why would I feel it at 60 mph but not 70?... which brings me back to a balance issue.

Ugh.

 

By the way, the shop did not line up the dots on the first set of tires. I brought this to their attention and they said "It doesn't matter when using a road-force balance, which we do." I call BS. Sure, maybe it isn't *necessary* to line the dots up, but that makes it easier, so it's better. Happily, they did (mostly) line the dots up on the second set... surprise surprise lol... but yeah, still balance issues so wtf-ever I guess.