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