Is slight steering wheel vibration normal with AT tires?

I had one bad tire that caused vibration at 65mph. Once located and replaced - no vibration. Bad tire had high spot on it even though it was perfectly balanced. Watch them spin in balancer. If they wobble manufacturer will give you new one due to defect. GL

 

Ever since I got my tires properly balanced 2k miles ago, no vibration.

 

Replaced the Cooper AT3 @ 45k on the clock with the forum reco of Micheline Defenders.
ALL steering, wobbles, shakes, etc are now gone. My guesstimate is that the Coopers were good for about 40k or so and then for this particular vehicle needed tossing. Outer block cupping was never resolved even though tire rotations was on schedule, performed with oil changes.
SO, lol guess the ol saying YMMV certainly fits here.
and I'm appreciative of the Defender tires.

 

My Wildpeaks on the Tacoma have bad luck. 2 flats & only 2 years old. I’ve patched one & replaced one. First was a brass drill bit then a large screw on the edge of the tire.

My 4Runner has duratracs. 2 years old & there loud as shit. Both sets r 265/70/17

 

I am starting to feel the same way about the wildpeaks...on my 4R. I seem to have to go to discount tire every 5K to get them rotated and road forced balance and then the vibration goes away. I was there today....and took this picture and thought of the gang!

 

Be sure to re-torque your lugs every time someone else touches them. They won't be correct after any shop visit, pretty much guaranteed.

 

This is true!

I'd actually recommend loosening them before re-torquing as they're usually over-tightened.

 

My nitto grapplers are great when the pressure is right. 33+ cold and I am fine. 32 and I get shakes between 50 and 60 mph. Got it back from getting my 20k and a torn axel seal replaced, shimmy. Checked pressure…sure enough 32. Added my air back in and bang…no shimmy. Been that way since I got it.

 

Yeah, it’s weird. Seems like a lot, not all but a lot of 4Runners have a certain psi sweet spot when it comes to tires. My ‘10 Limited had a range with Michelin Defenders (which seem to be the least troublesome) and now my ‘22 with Toyo OC AT3’s also has a certain range that it likes. It appears that if I get my “cold” psi dialed in, it doesn’t matter if it’s 95 or 65 outside it’s fine from the start. Similar, on the flip side, if I’m not dialed in for my cold psi, it sucks through any temperature range.

 

I hope my story helps some people out.

I lifted my 4R with 2,000 miles on it. No shimmy until about 14,500 miles. I did an alignment and 2 tire balances with no luck. Took it back to the shop that did the lift and they found that my drivers side UCA was messed up so that was replaced. Still had the shimmy. Did another balance with no luck. Took it back to the shop and they put it up on the lift and ran it in 4WD to look at the shape of the tires. One tire definitely had a wobble to it. They put the wheels and tires on it from another 4R and the wobble went away. Took it back to Discount Tire and they said it was no big deal and balances the tires again. I convinced them to change out the tire in question since I had a cert on the tires and was able to verify that another set of tires resolved the issue. It had to be the tires. Once they replaced the one tire, the issue completely went away.

If someone can't seem to fix the wobble with multiple road force balances, I would suggest trying the wheels and tires from someone that doesn't have the issue to see if it goes away. Discount Tire can balance an out-of-round tire properly and not really notice that it's out of round enough to make a difference. To them, all tires are not perfectly round and if it balances, it's not a defective tire.

 

I have a 21 Pro with the stock Terra Grapplers. It is 18 months old with 30,000 miles and I recently returned from a 20 day / 5,400 mile road trip out west from MD. I have only noticed the shaking steering wheel on two occasions going around 60 mph and it seemed like a brief spell. Maybe I am very lucky in that I apparently don't have an issue or I am just tone deaf to the vibrations. My mountain bike handlebar shimmy's pretty good thru the rock gardens and downhills - maybe that is why I think the 4R is good to go!

 

If your having this shimmy issue, try rotating the tires(yes you'll still have a out of balance tire) but you'll might be able to tell which tire it is.

 

Just an update that my shimmy, which was always intermittent, has become even less frequent as I’ve put miles on my Pirelli Scorpion ATs. Also, this will make folks laugh, but I’ve got a hypothesis that I’ve been putting into practice that may be the real reason for this improvement.

Hypothesis is that I can force the vibration that causes the shimmy to express itself in some other component(s) below the steering wheel — whether that’s along the steering shaft, in the rack, in the suspension or somewhere else. So, when the shimmy starts I literally grip the wheel tight enough to stop it, reasoning (go ahead, laugh!) that I can force some other component to start expressing that vibration instead.

Important to note perhaps that my shimmy is nowhere near severe, just been annoying when it does crop up. So I have no concern I’m causing some kind of serious problem with this technique. And yes, wheel balance is obv the best solution, but like others I have done mine three times inc RoadForce and none of them banished the shimmy 100% of the time.

Time will tell, but don’t knock it til you try it!