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Vibrations at 70 mph

I've seen a few posts here related to this, but none have ever come up with a concrete answer, so here goes: My ?01 Toyota Tacoma TRD has a nasty vibration between 63 and 70 mph. It's constant at that speed, regardless if I'm braking, coasting or accelerating. A friend followed me home looking for evidence of tire bounce or anything unusual that he could see while driving behind/next to me...again no visible symptoms. I've had the tires balanced and a bent wheel replaced in an effort to solve this problem. A few things that I've noticed and I'm wondering if they are normal or indicative of this problem: 1/2" - 1" of play in the steering wheel when I'm at a stop and tuning the steering wheel before I "feel" the wheels turning. Is this normal or an indicator or a worn tie rod? Something else I've noticed is a very slight wobble when driving at speed (anything higher than 40 mph or so). Finally, the truck is ever so slightly out of alignment (it'll veer very slightly to the left, but this is very slight. When I had the wheels balanced last time, all 4 were out of balance, but were rebalanced. I'm going to have another wheel balancing done this weekend, as well as have an alignment done, but I suspect this is a deeper problem (perhaps an issue with the suspension, steering, etc).

I'd like to go to my mechanic as intelligently as possible. What I want to avoid here is a huge bill trying to track down this issue. Any thoughts from any mechanics/weekend mechanics/general consumers as to what this problem is or have had a similar problem that was fixed?

TIA!

Reply to
Swissguy
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1) Are those "Lug-Centric" wheels?
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so, they need to be balanced with the adapter. While you're at it, finda shop with both the lug-centric adapter and a Hunter GSP9700 Road Forcebalancer http://128.242.141.111/

2) If you get aligned, have the shop look very closely for worn, bent, or loose parts. (Every good shop does that as a matter of course.) Have the shop align within Toyota's spec, but center the toe and camber and set the maximum allowable caster. You'll feel more stability when driving.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Shelton

Reply to
Andy K.

Did your tire shop balance the tires correctly? Tacoma Aluminum rims are not hub centric, they are "lug centric", if the shop balances them via a cone through the center hole, they will look fine on the machine, but will not run right on the truck. Find a tire shop that balances your wheels using a lug centric device, your local Toyota Dealer should have one. Toyota has a TSB on it requiring the use of an adapter similar to a Haweka adapter. You will not get a good balance using the center hole on stock Toyota alloy rims. The play in the steering could be worn bushing on the steering rack. Have someone set in the truck with it running. While you watch the steering rack have them move the steering wheel back and forth and see if the rack moves in the bushings. It could also be play in the tilt wheel/steering column setup. If you have tilt wheel. Here is a great site to visit.

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Reply to
BBTACO

the most likely problem is your driveshaft out of balance. this can be caused by worn or broken Universal joints, or you dropped the truck on big bump/rock on a bush road and bent the drive shaft. Jack up one rear wheel, block the vehicle solidly so it can't move and spin the wheel with the drive train / motor. If it vibrates at 66/2 = 33 mph on the speedo, then the wheel is the problem since it is now doing 66mph [the other wheel is stopped]. But 66mph should give you the driveshaft vibs as if on the road.

Reply to
Guylaine J. Parisien

If it's a driveshaft problem would it still vibrate when not under load? The U-joints on my Mustang driveshaft we about to disintegrate and were causing one hell of a vibration but only under load. When coasting the ride was very smooth.

I've had the same vibration problem as you in my '01 Tacoma at about 65 mph. I tried to rebalance, rotate, and change pressure in the tires to no avail. Ultimately, I found that the tires were slightly cupped and when I replaced them with new Bridgestone's the vibration went away.

Reply to
JC

I'm having exactly the same problem with mine. I think it's the tires and the shop I took it to says that it is. Unfortunately, they seem to have thousands of miles left in them, so I'm facing the delimma of throwing away good money by replacing my tires.

I spoke to a tire dealer who said the problem was extremely common with Tacomas because all of them are being sold with the 31" tires now, and that the tires were just too big and hard to balance on small trucks.

I would just put smaller tires on mine when I replace them, but then the speedometer would be all screwed up.

Reply to
Sean Elkins

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