lextout

Hi everyone,

I got new dunlop tires yesterday installed on my 17 inch stock rims and had them rebalanced the wheels and tires twice, and i still get a steering wheel shake after 60mph,is there a break in period for new tires? has anyone else ever experienced this? thanks in advance.

hypervish

Did you have them balanced on a roadforce machine?

The tire may have a defect, maybe a misaligned belt, etc.

SCORTIZ

You need to get those suckers re-balanced. When you go back to the shop have them check if there is a slight bend in the rim this may cause the car to shake as well.

Arcadian

+1 on the road-force balance. Also, my MIchelin Pilots did have less shake as they scrubbed in.

Lexusfam

iTrader: (3)

Make sure they are not using static weights.

lexo98

iTrader: (2)

+1 on the static. Generally you place wheel weights on the inner and outter lips to properly balance. Most likely those 17's don't have an outside lip. If they just slapped some weights on the inner lip they were being lazy. Make sure they used 2 sets of weights. One on the inside lip or near it and one on the inside of the wheel towards the outter lip.

rogzballz

iTrader: (9)

Their machine could be out of spec and needs to be recalibrated. An experienced balancer should see if the Rim is bent or uneven and move it to the rear if your wheels are not stagged.

LowGS3OO

iTrader: (1)

I purchased bad tires (tires with defects) about a month ago and everything was nice and smooth but since I drive so many highway miles daily I am now starting to figure out why they were considered bad tires. My steering wheel and car shakes after 80mph and also when I brake. I thought new tires would solve this issue?

lextout

they were road forced, they put weights on the inside of the rim, little square pieces about 4 or 5 little square bars. Also they werent bent and made sure they checked for it. Im wondering if the new tires could be defective.

raytseng

welcome to your aged car club.

If you've been here awhile you KNOW that shake is a problem with this car. And a lot of people have tried multitude of different things to get rid of it.

The theory I agree with is that as this car ages, all the front suspension parts develop some play. The slightest imbalance then will cause a shake. I think the wheel shop's balance is probably OK and within industry specs.

If you're not going whole hog to get, you can try swapping tire combinations around, to see if a different pair will happen to cancel out the shake-Especially if your previous tires didn't have it.. If you can identify which corners had which wheels previously, that maybe a good place to start.

If you happen to run into a combination that gets rid of the shake, don't change anything. Don't rotate your tires, etc. etc. Just stay stuck on the setup that minimizes the shake.
Yes you may get slightly more uneven tire wear. But since we have a RWD car, it will not be excessively uneven. At this point, it is the lesser of evils

BayAreaLex

This problem is really discouraging and seems to be extremely common on our cars for some reason.

Although the majority of the time it's a wheel balance issue, some cars are more proned to steering wheel shake for a given imbalance than others, and we seem to have gotten the short end of the stick with our GS cars.

First, steering wheel shimmy/shake at speed can be caused by improper wheel balance, a rim that is not straight/true, a tire that has excessive lateral "walk" (measured with a dial indicator), improper alignment, worn tie rods, or worn front suspension components/bushings.

First, don't put 100% faith into your tire shop's balancer. Case and point, I once had a steering wheel shimmy problem on a 1996 Mustang Cobra. I took it in to the local tire shop and they rebalanced. Still shimmy. A couple days later I took it into America Tires to get those same wheels rebalanced. They said the balance was significantly off, rebalanced, and it improved by 90%. There's certainly out of calibration equipment out there and no shortage of poor technicians who are either lazy or just plain don't know how to use their equipment. Also, sometimes it's not a matter of just sticking some wheel weights anywhere in the inner barrel and calling it good. A quality balancer will also tell you whether that weight should be favored towards the inside or outside end of the wheel. How often do techs pay attention to that detail? Probably infrequently.

Start off with a rebalance at a reputable tire shop. Have them confirm the balance that was done by your shop. If that doesn't fix it, measure the lateral movement of the rim and tire with a dial indicator (you can look up youtube videos for this). Finally, inspect the tie rods and suspension components for play.

You can always swap your wheels front to back to see if it makes a difference.

As mentioned above, a big part of it is that our cars are getting older, bushing tolerances are opening up. Under these circumstances, a minor imbalance may now be noticeable whereas when the car was new, you would have never even felt it. Chances are that if you have a good balance and fresh components like tie rods, balljoints and steering rack bushings, this problem would be history.

I've been chasing a minor steering wheel shimmy myself and have not yet been able to pin-point it conclusively (and that's with new rims and tires)

Next, if your tire is out of round or has a flat spot, there isn't a balancer on the planet that will solve your problem.

Gunnut

Take it back and have them re-torque the lug nuts to Lexus specifications. I notice my 98 is real touchy if the lug nuts are too tight and not evenly torqued.

BayAreaLex

I've heard this before too, but theoretically I'm struggling to understand why "too tight" could potentially lead to vibration. It's probably more to do with not evenly torqued rather than too tight.

AKS14

+1 for roadforce balance.

Also, some less expensive tires apparently will be a bit out of round, and you can get the tire to balance out technically, but there will still be some vibration apparently from what a friend who works at a tire shop told me..

Also if you have any bubbles/sidewall separation issues it would cause vibration.

Gunnut

I agree it probably has more to do with uneven torque. My experience over that last 35 years is that shops grossly over-torque lug nuts. When I rotate tires my tires I turn the pressure on my air compressor down to 50lbs and finish tightening/torquing by hand.
No vibration.