Vibration in Steering wheel

Ever have a tire come off while driving? Sometimes it takes an extra second to make sure the lugs are seated correctly. This changes from rim to rim and in todays "service economy" many "techs" will start them by hand and just slam them home with an impact.

 

THE lug nuts 40 ft. lbs. #1, then #2 of the lug nuts torque it 85 ft. lbs. ... my 4runner is the book 83ft lbs. ...
THEN the next day running it 4runner , the lug nuts are torque ...85 ....

 

lol. I go by feel when tightening lug nuts. Has worked fine for the last 1,000,000mi of driving.

 

I have had to back out one of the lugs on my daughter's RAV4, incredibly simple and relatively cheap. One of the few instances where, for expediency, I bought a Dorman product instead of OEM. I was able to get Amazon overnight delivery with arrival on a Sunday.

The lug was so bad, and I know the dealership was the last one to touch it. Fortunately, I had extra nuts because I put locking nuts on another RAV4.

The same dealer also screwed up a brake bleeder valve and I ended up replacing the whole caliper. It's sad, but buying a used Toyota from a Toyota dealership shouldn't have been such an adventure.

 

4Runner torque for 5th generation and beyond:

 

My new to me ‘16, has some sort of driveline vibration I can feel. I come from a BMW x3 and maybe I’m expecting too much? But I’m not sure it’s normal or what. But I have 20”- 275/55/20 BFGs All Terrains. Tried moving the back to front etc. and seems like now I feel it more but are these vehicles super sensitive to balancing or what? I’m also running 32psi when it seems I should be 37/38 in this size range. So I gotta fix that first.

Any input are there some common issues that I should look at? Truck has 44k miles on it. I may just get the wheels balanced.

 

Being up high amplifies motion. The known problem is a shimmy at freeway speeds. I had really bad Hercules AT tires made in Indonesia and my 2020 OR shook like the San Andreas. With the Dunlop AT-20 and Bridgestone Duelers in my 2023, not a thing. I test drove other 2020 ORs (without the garbage Hercules) and they didn't have it either.

My guess is that the suspension and design don't have much tolerance in order to be loose enough for light off-roading.

I have also experienced another issue with non-Japanese Asian-made tires: Tread drift or pull.

 

My wheel doesn’t shake. I just feel a driveline noise/ hard to explain lol. I have a 05 TJ so I know body on frame - but I feel like this rig is significantly bigger and more luxurious I shouldn’t be hearing or feeling these? It it makes a difference, it’s a Limited model.

Seems to drive straight, no pull. Maybe a bit wander as I noticed myself going a bit to the side while highway driving and maybe my attention not fully 100% where the X3 I could set and forget lol.

 

my 2016 runner the drive shafts and the u joints did the every year of that grease .. in the fall ....
the wheel rims are a MPH a variation of the speed vibration ...balancing the weights ..
the front bearings are a total vibration of the MPH speed ..

 

Sorry? I am not following you. You greased the joints every fall? This one has low miles, so I also greased my ujoints just last weekend, all 6 locations.

But I am not sure what the last part of your post is? If it helps, I also have Fast HD rims, these but in black..

 

the U JOINTS ARE THE GREASE FITTINGS ... ALSO THE DRIVE SHAFT FWD / REV THE GREASE FITTINGS ....

 

Ok, known issues...
Tire inflation
Tire out of balance
Tire flat spot, uneven wear
Lugs not seated correctly
Rim bent
Spindle bearing (lifted?)
U-joints
CV joints
Ball joint
Shit roads (test on multiple roads)
Sloppy spider gear due to poor manufacturing (see spindle bearing) ...

That's off the top of my head, if there's no information here, search on the other site.

 

Please post a few letters. There are two sites , tw and t4ro

edit i see. I always thought tw had its own 4runner forum.

 

Were the Limiteds and all-wheel drive model back then?

There's a lot that could be going on. Especially any fluids haven't been changed regularly. Even an inflation variation on the tires, let alone uneven wear on the tires, could cause catastrophic problems with an all-wheel drive system.

 

I would get your tires and lug nuts completely dialed first, figure out or seek advice on inflation pressure. It's printed on the door sticker, but your tire has different specs so things may be (are) different. Do you have a good shop that does tires? The 4runner doesn't have any irregular vibration for me. I hear the engine I don't mind.

Tire pressure low you might feel wandering. You can see the scrub line, the wear line across the tread shoulder of the tire. Tire pressure low you'll see wear extend down the outside of the shoulder knob towards the wheel. My all terrains have a square shoulder knob and it's clear when the scrubbing extends to the side of the shoulder knob . You can try comparing with your bmw too.

 

I was a tire company the lug nuts are the gun ,,,,.. then the torque is the snap click ... then the higher 83 torque higher ....
the tires are lower of that air pressure ... spray the dish spray soap/water and did the bubbles ...
I was the 2 months and the tire valve then the china ....also that cap cracked it ..did the company tire ....

 

Yes they were, H4F system. I did actually just change my transfer case fluid with redline 75w90 earlier today as I had to replace the output shaft seal.

I rotated the tires, seems better. Cleaned the back of rims up with my wire brush so it seats perfectly, though they weren’t really dirty. May get the tires balanced, no better shops around here they’re all crooks. I also did set the pressure to 37 vs 32.

Maybe I’ll do the rear diff fluid too.

Can’t compare to bmw it’s long gone, thank god. Was becoming a nightmare.

 

I was engine oil changed it and the fluids inspect it , the NOV 2016 ,,,, in the July 2016 runner new bought it ..
I was the fluids 3,000 miles NOV 2016 ... the rear diff gear oil is grayish ... then changed it and a hour a go .. it was 35K miles and all those gear fluids did a very clean ..I was the disc painted it ....
yes the 38 psi at tires in my runner and the forums members are the 38psi .. MPG .. 2 plus MPG ..

 

Did we buy the same 4R??? I had same mileage and tire size on my new to me Limited. Had them rotated and shimmy got bad! Rotated again still bad but was shown bad front brakes. So I had rotors and pads done front and back. Still a pretty bad wiggle. I just drove 1400 miles to VA and at 85+mph shimmy not so bad.
So now I’m going to check lugs and psi. My Pathfinder tires say max psi is 50 but not hot/cold suggestions. I know tire place in TX set me at 35lbs. Seems low and they look low. After this I MAY take it to a rotate and balance shop out here. All I know is this issue wasn’t there on test drive ( I drove it on freeway ) and after the swap-n-spin after purchase it’s shimmied since. Or I may take it to an off-road shop out here to see if they can figure it out.

 

Really important point... A tire's maximum pressure is NOT the 4Runner's max pressure.

Be my guest to go with the tire manufacturer's maximum pressure and try to swerve going freeway speeds or hit a pothole. May the gods have mercy on your soul.

I may be a bit hyperbolic, but not by much.

 

I am sorry, but I really do not follow. Engine oil is honey like, had a taste, fresh. No reason for concern. Diff oil good point, still original. Maybe I should change it, going to cost me about $150 canadian pesos to do the front and rear. Not quite sure what disc painting your referring to? I run stock rotors.

How can a shimmy be caused by bad brakes? Like were your calipers seized and basically sticking? My lugs I just rotated the tires this past Friday, put them all at 90 ft-lbs. I did increase the pressure to 37psi and its quite a difference from 32.. drives way better.

If you have the same tire as me, then your recommended pressure is 37psi. You can check here, the BFG All Terrains are a Load Range D tire - which is LT metric and pick 275/55/20. Stock OEM are P Metric (SL) type tire and choose the OEM size.

 

When there's an accident with serious bodily injury, and your tires are over inflated, it will be factored in the investigation. No hyperbole there. Law enforcement does investigate that and nothing satisfies an investigator more than busting somebody for improperly maintaining their vehicle. Toyotas cold tire pressure specification is 32 PSI.

At freeway speeds after about 5 minutes, that pressure will increase naturally by 4 to 5 lb PSI.

So, if you start at 37 lb PSI as a cold pressure, it will increase. While I don't like the governmental interference when it comes to tailpipe emissions and petroleum product use, there are safety standards there for a reason.

In addition to less tire tread coming in contact with the road with high inflation, the tire is more likely to have a blowout. Stopping distances are exponentially increased. Although, I got to hand it to Darwin his reflection on humanity is a practical thing. There's a chance that somebody May injure other people and that's where I have a big disagreement with willful and negligent over inflation.

Well I have posted multiple times before that there is a known shimmy at freeway speeds, I reported my problems to the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration. If Toyota were to suddenly discover that this was a safety hazard with the assistance of a governmental agency prompting them, it would be because of reports like mine.

Including tire problems, alignment problems and the very rare possibility that a lug nut might not be tight enough, inflating your tires over the cold pressure standard more than 10% is asking for more trouble

I've said my peace, my karma is fulfilled and I got to unfollow this thread because I started to look for NHTSA's YouTube videos showing cars with over inflated tires handling emergency maneuvers.

 

OEM tire pressure on the side of the door makes perfect sense when your tires are OEM and the load range and size that came from factory.

However, when you go with alternate tires that vary in size, load range etc. OEM pressure becomes just as much of a safety concern as perhaps being over inflated. Not sure how the tire calculators then come up with the pressure they recommend?

What is this shimmy you have posted about. Please provide the posts. Not sure how it can be normal and acceptable for a vehicle to have a shimmy in this day and age. This is a first, and I've driven many cars.

So what is your recommendation in this case? One can always perform the chalk test and see contact patch area and how it is.

 

maybe you have a dead front shock?

however, the truck in my pic had the revtek spacer lift and i suspected that could have been my steering wheel hop at 55mph.

weird geometry maybe.

that rig got totaled in a crash last month so i’ll never know but a test drive on another with bilstiens up front was definitely a smoother ride. my one will those to lift it.

 

So increasing the pressure to 37psi I didn’t realize but it triggers the TPS (tire pressure) light after some kilometres, lol.

Is there a way to calibrate the system? What’s is the max allowable +\- from OEM pressure (32) from getting triggered?

Or is it the fact I removed my spare from under the vehicle in preparation for undercoating it’s triggering it?

 

Any update from the OP?

 

So I upped my psi and my vibration all but went away. Tire shop told me 35psi. I went up to 48! We all know what the door says but I’m running 275/55R20. Tire doesn’t have a min psi just says don’t inflate over 50 lbs. How do I find out what it really should be?? 48 has nearly zero vibrations but I didn’t hit any rough road. After reading above I think I’ll drop it to 40 and see how it rides.

 

Use this website.

 

Most of us would need to look up your door, we're used to 265/70r17 or bigger (in 17 . . .)

I would keep talking to your tire shop or find another one if you'd like

 

I had this issue with my 4runner running on BFG KO2s. Took it to discount tire several times and my local shop. The shop put my 4runner up on the rack and spun the tires. I had a tire out-of-round. They sell discount tires there all day long and have a relationship with DT. They sent me back over there for another balance. DT couldn't see the issue. I convinced them to trade out the tire (I had certs on the tires) and the issue went away. The road force balance will detect some things but apparently not my out-of-round tire.

The shop and DT recommended that I not buy another set of KO2s for the 4runner. They see this issue a lot apparently, not exclusive to KO2s, but a lot of them are.