Vibration in front end

Balancing a tire depends to a great degree on the accuracy and calibration of the balancing machine. However, I had a set of tires on a former truck that did exactly the same thing - I even went so far as to have the tires trued and balanced while still on the truck but no dice. Take my word for it, go ahead and have the front end aligned, it worked for me even after the original tire dealer said it wouldn't help.

Good luck - Jonathan

I just had a steering wheel side to side vibration of 1/2".... at

Truck is a 2000 4x4 Z71 Silverado LT ext Cab... 60,500 miles..

Tires are Michelin LTX-AT 265/75 R16 LR C installed new at 3700 miles....

Did not want Wilderness P Metric car tires.... Fire Tires pulled right...

The East side GBay, WI chevy dealer has a very good tire Force balancer....

Even a tire dealer goes there for their Problem tire balancing......

They took the weights off, rebalanced 4 tires, and rotated tires

front to rear... All steering wheel vibration gone.. $30 cost.

Now do I buy Michelin LTX AT's LR C or REVO Dueler AT's LR C...

Cost of either is about $190 each....

PS: For your Tire Vibs Problem.... A wheel/rim/tire can have

both radial OR Lateral runout problems... Check both....

An alignment problem doesn't normally cause a Vibration. Especially one like your describing, let alone on a truck as new as yours. Sounds like a wheel or tire problem. Did you have this problem BEFORE you replaced the tires?

You have steel wheels so I would Image they are Dynamically balancing your tires. Installing weights on both sides of the wheel. I say take it to a Shop that can Road Force your wheels & tires. Basically the tire machine will simulate the tire being on the car and driven on. Does this by forcing a Roller with great force onto the tire that's on the machine and then takes readings. The machine will tell if the tire or wheel is screwed up or not. It can even cure some problems by telling you were to turn on tire on the wheel to get a better lower reading to correct a problem. You need to find a Shop that has like a Hunter GPS9700 to do it. GO here for more Info:

No.

Thanks.

Are 265/75/16 tires considered large? They're less than 32" diameter.

I originally got Dunlop Rover RVXTs in the LT series. Currently they've been swapped out for Rover ATs in the P series. I don't need the LTs, but preferred the RVXTs over the ATs. I couldn't find the RVXTs in the P series locally.

I've had these tires balanced 6 times so far, but not w/ the Road Force machine others have mentioned. I'm going to try that today as there are apparently a good number of folks that have that machine locally. I'll report back as to whether that cures it or not.

That'll be done today. Thanks.

I'm not confident that the balancing anyone has done to this point has been accurate. I'm not going to let the original shop do the alignment though. Once this is over, I'm pretty much done with them.

It's Sears, by the way.

Mine is stock rims with nothing changed except the tires.

I've had load force balancing done on all tires/wheels including the rim that Sears said was bad. ALL rims tested for lateral and radial runout and all pass spec. All suspension components tested fine. Alignment fine. Diagnosis: yet another set of bad tires from Sears.

I wonder how willing they're going to be to give me back every dime I've spent with them in the last couple of weeks.

There's your problem. Buying tires from Sears! It's about as bad as the crap tires they sell at Petboys, those Kumhos?!?! Or the BigO brand tires. Your buying crap, that who knows where it's made at the time. Get a good Name brand tires and you won't have these problems. Goodyear, Bridgestone/Firestone, Cooper, Michelin, etc. There are also some really good Imports that have been around forever like Yokahama, or Toyo for example. People don't want to spend a lot of money on tires, so a lot of places sell low end CRAP. I remember Petboys not long ago, I don't know if they still are, where selling 4 tires for $99. I mean come on. There's not a big markup on tires, so it was probley costing Petboys $20 per tire selling for $25 each. I'm guessing they are also charging for extras like New Valve steams, Mounting and Balancing also on top of that, but still.

If your going to buy tires at one of these National Chain places, get a Name Brand tire. Spend a little more money on a better tire. I'd get tires Someplace else with a Hunter Roadforce machine. Get your Truck corrected, and bring the other tires back to SEARS for a refund. You don't want there Defective tires.

They're Dunlops. Originally RVXTs, now ATs. Originally LTmetric, now Pmetric.

Just got another set of Dunlop ATs installed locally and RoadForce balanced on a Hunter 9700. Same problem. Even tried a different brand of tire. Same problem. All rims are well within spec as far as radial and lateral runout. Driveshaft is fine.

I'm taking it to the dealer on Monday.

There is a TSB out on the steel rims that I'm hoping to beat them out of even though I'm about 6,000 miles out of warranty. Anyone have any experience getting TSBs covered past the warranty period?

"scrape" wrote: > I've got a 2003 Silverado K1500 w/42,000 miles. I just > replace the > tires. OEM size was 245/75/16. Installed a 265/75/16 LT > series. I > noticed a vibration that started at about 35mph and seemed to > go away > at around 70 being the worst at about 60-65. Took the truck > back to > where I had the tires installed and they rebalanced them and > said I > had "a very badly bent rim". > I took them at their word and ordered another rim from the > dealer > (standard, steel rim - nothing fancy) > The new rim came in a day or two later. I took it back to the > tire > installer and told them I wanted to see the bent one before > installing > the new one. They couldn't find one they thought was bent. > They > balanced a third time. No change. > Went back to them a 4th time demanding that it be fixed. > Balanced > them AGAIN. Every time, they've found at least one or more > out of > balance. This time, they were able to show me that TWO tires > weren't > tracking straight - just looking at them on the balance > machine. > However, only one rim appeared to be even slightly less than > true. > Ordered in two more tires. > The tires hadn't shown up by last Friday and I had a 1000 mile > trip > over Memorial Day, so I insisted that they install 4 new > tires. They > installed a P-metric tire from the same manufacturer and > replaced what > they said was the worst rim. > No change. > Went to a local branch of the same store when on the road > figuring > maybe alignment was the problem. They talked me out of that > saying > that alignment couldn't/wouldn't cause vibration and balanced > them > again, finding one out of balance. > > At this point, I've got one new rim, two new sets of tires > that have > been balanced a total of six times and a vibration that no one > can > seem to cure. > > There was no problem whatsoever until the tires were > installed. > > Two questions: > 1) What could it be? > 2) Could they have caused it? > > Thanks.

It is without doubt, tire and rim related though there may be a alignment issue too aggrevated by new tire size. Have you tried swaping tires and rims front to back to see if it changes anything? These new tires are puting a load on the front end that was not there before and causing your problem or instabilty. Also is this vibration being felt in steering wheel?

Normally this is somewhat true but without seeing and feeling the true nature of the vibration or shimmy, I cannot rule it out as I have seen alignement cause front ends to shimmy and shaken to varing degrees. The larger tires are in fact placing large dynamic stresses on front end parts and alignemnt can play a role here because of it. Align frontend with new tires install that have been properly balanced and I suspect the problem will go away. Get a quality alignment though and tell the tech your problem too at alignment time.

Those bushings are stiffer and they effect the alignement differently going do the road as the suspension does not "flex" as much at speed so the alignemnt is a bit different with the dynamic loads of 70mph on it vs with rubber bushings. You may need to tweak the camber and toe in just a bit (a bit less camber and a bit less toe)

I've had a third set of tires installed by a shop with a Hunter 9700 balancer and the problem seems to be about 50-75% cured. Maybe. There is still a noticable vibration between ~50-70mph. I did find a TSB indicating Chevy was having some problems with the welds on the standard steel rims - which I have. I talked to the dealer and he won't touch it since I'm out of warranty. Won't touch it as in giving me a free set of replacement rims. Not that I fault him or figured otherwise.

Suspension components have been checked. Radial and lateral runout has been checked. Alignment has NOT been done as everyone keeps telling me it HAS to be a wheel/tire problem and can't possibly be alignment.

The dealer will charge me ~$100 to diagnose it. I can buy a new set of Cragar steel rims for less than $200. The OEM rims are $125 each.

Either I'm going to ignore the advice I've gotten from everyone and just get an alignment or figure it has to be the rims and get a new set. I'd feel worse if I bought the rims and didn't need them than getting an alignment I didn't need.

The tires aren't really appreciably larger. I went from a 245/75/16 to a 265/75/16. We're talking 20mm wider and about 1/2 inch taller than stock.

The shops I've had it at have driven it and didn't want to charge me for an alignment as they were certain it wouldn't cure anything that was going on.

That's still 2 sizes LARGER.

I would normally say that also, but I would also want to at least check the front suspension and make sure there wasn't a problem that the larger tires were amlaplying.

Okay. I've still got it in the back of my head that I should at least get the alignment checked. Bearings and steering componenents have been checked.

Just had the alignment checked. It was 100% on the numbers.

-Tires are fine.

-Rims are fine.

-Alignment is fine.

-Steering components are fine.

-Balance is perfect.

-Driveshaft is fine.

-Front wheel bearings are fine.

-Rotors appear to be fine, but haven't been mic'ed - and unless they're out of balance, they're fine. (Can a rotor get out of balance?) Don't feel anything in the pedal.

Rear axle bearings?

What's left?