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4runner front-end vibration

I have a 97 4runner that develops a shimmy at 65mph on the right side, and it's driving me nuts.

This is my daughter's car, so I'm not the daily driver of it. In the past few months she's been in a couple of fender-benders with it, one involving hopping a curb, and we replaced the tires at about the same time. So, simultaneously we've hopped a curb and replaced the tires. I had the alignment checked when the tires were replaced.

Since then, we started noticing this shimmy at 65mph. So far, I've had the tires rebalanced and rotated twice, which did nothing. Then I took it to my (independent shop) mechanic, who looked things over and says it's not the front end. He rebalanced the tires again; the shimmy is still there. He was convinced it's the tires, so I went back to the tire store -- since the vibration is on the right, they replaced both right-side tires. The shimmy is still there.

Today I jacked it up and verified the new tire isn't out of round, lifted the wheel and felt the lower ball joint -- no play that I could detect, but I'm an engineer not a doctor. No obvious bearing play.

Any ideas? Should I find another mechanic? What should I be looking for?

--Steve

Reply to
Steve
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Good luck finding a place that has the right equipment.

B
Reply to
B

Check your idler arm - that can cause this

Reply to
Bubba

Actually it wasn't that hard. The site you mention has a link to the Hunter website, which can locate shops that have the road-force balancing equipment. I called the closest Discount Tire location to my house and they knew about the Haweka flange plate for balancing lug-centric 4runner wheels, and they had the Hunter GSP9700.

Really good equipment, and the shop did a great job. Now my 65mph vibration is down from scary to slightly annoying. So I've still got it.

I doubt it's the alignment, but I think I'll have that checked again since I last had it checked by the local NTB shop, and they've proven themselves incompetent (since they failed to balance my wheels/tires properly after three attempts).

Then, if that doesn't do it, I'm back to wondering: tie rod ends? lower ball joints? what???

--Steve

Reply to
Steve

Driver training school? :-)

Reply to
Drew Parsons

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