Shake or Vibration Issues

[hotrodz37]

 

Let me give you a bit of advice of a common mistake people make when they start having vehicle problem and they contemplate or actually stop making payment on the note, DO NOT DO IT!. Even if your vehicle note is through GM financial, your note and warranty issues are two different worlds and stopping payment on your note thinking it will leverage a result for your vehicle warranty issues is misguided. All it will do is ruin your credit.

 

Until you either "Lemon Law" it or find some other civil solution with GM on your vehicle, you have to keep your loan current on payments.

 

 

Well said, and unfortunately that's the way it is when you finance your car or truck. The bank does not care about the problems you have with your vehicle, they do not even care if you have liability insurance coverage, all they mandate is collision and comprehensive coverage to protect their asset until the vehicle is paid off.

 

 

 

Yup! It surprises me the amount of people that can not make the separation between the two. I have seen it drive people into bankruptcy because when they stop paying and the vehicle is repo'd and sold at auction for pennies on the dollar, the bank holding the note then goes back after the borrower for the difference between payoff with added repo fees and legal fees. Many times in the end, it way more than if just had kept paying the original note amount.

 

 

Sorry guys, did not mean it to come across that I would stop making payments. What I meant to say, is that I would RATHER not have to keep making payments on a shaking truck, and would prefer to keep the one I have, but would consider swapping trucks if it cures the problem. Never in a million years would I consider not making payments all together. I wouldn't want to jeopardize my credit by any means, and plus, that's not the way I was raised. I made a financial commitment to pay for the truck when I signed the papers and I will stick to that commitment.

Edited January 30, 2014 by hotrodz37

[hotrodz37]

 

I will post up as soon as I get them on and test drive it.

 

Dredd,

 

I had the Michelins put on mine at the dealers expense and did not help. I hope you are lucky enough to have different results! Let us know what you come up with!

Edited January 30, 2014 by hotrodz37

[pm26]

 

Dredd,

 

I had the Michelins put on mine at the dealers expense and did not help. I hope you are lucky enough to have different results! Let us know what you come up with!

Did they balance the wheels correctly?

Edited January 30, 2014 by pm26

[hotrodz37]

Sure did, road force was low on all of them. I have had 4 different sets of tires and 2 sets of wheels on it, and none of them got rid of the vibration.

[George J. Klinkhardt III]

I got a call yesterday from a local dealer in which I am friends with the service manager..said had another '14 truck (Z71 4WD) with the vibration issue...with Goodyear 20's....upon driving the truck, he noticed the vibration worst at 30-50 mph and also noticed while gradually accelerating...truck STAYED in V4 mode! Said called GM and they had no adjustments that could be made to correct this problem!! (Forunately, I have not had this certain problem with mine)...so he's gonna continue to research and THEN will probably be faced with changing out the tires to another brand because along with problem above....the truck also has the common 70-75 vibration!

I've also discovered I have the thunking noise in the rear...he replaced the Ranch shocks and no help...I noticed with a hard side-to-side movement on the bed....the noise is coming from axle slack or hub slack..I looked at 2 more '14's and no noise...looked at two '13's (one of which my son drives) and no noise...

So I'm taking it back in Tuesday Feb. 4th and they are gonna look inside the differential to see what's loose....I will post what we find and if it was corrected....

BTW, as previously posted, the replacement of my GY's with Bridgestone Duelers eliminated about 95% of my vibration issue...the GY's were NOT out of round and road force balanced well within the guidelines -- rather not true when on the balancer with a side-to-side movement or wobble.....

The more I think about this and the Ser Mgr agrees....some of this may be due to something wrong inside the differential...(mine has 3.42's)

The saga continues and GM gurus still are HIDING from this nationwide problem!!!! I still love the truck otherwise!!

Edited January 30, 2014 by txab

[BringTheRain403]

By nationwide you mean the 100 members of this forum that have the problem?

[George J. Klinkhardt III]

By nationwide you mean the 100 members of this forum that have the problem?

I mean that there DEFINITELY is a problem and experienced by many who are NOT members of this forum....if you don't by that...ask several (which means more than one!) service managers how many they've had reported and you'll find out that it's many more than the 100 members on this forum "as you say".

BTW, if you don't like my comments...why do you take the time to read them....Real simple - if you don't like my posts or what the "100" other members post - - DON'T READ THEM!!

If you haven't had any of the problems shown on this forum with your 2014 truck, you are fortunate, and why the hell are you on here??!!??

Edited January 30, 2014 by txab

[pm26]

Sure did, road force was low on all of them. I have had 4 different sets of tires and 2 sets of wheels on it, and none of them got rid of the vibration.

Please understand that low road force variation and wheel balance are two completely different things. Low force variation simply means that the tire is not enough out of round to cause perceptible problems if properly balanced. A perfectly round tire would have zero road force variation. Few, if any of the tires are that good.

 

When you check a tire for road force variation on a machine such as Hunter 9700 series, a roller will press against the rotating whee/tire with substantial force to simulate on road conditions. Then the machine measures VARIATION in road force which is actually the function of out-of-roundedness of the tire. Let's suppose that all four tires have really low variation numbers, such as 4 lbs. As the next step, the machine will check for imbalance in the wheel assembly. Just because the road force variation is low, it does not mean that such tires will not cause vibration if not balanced properly. And here is the problem. If the machine is not calibrated properly, or the wheel is not correctly centered on the machine, or the rim width and diameter are not properly measured, the wheels may not get balanced properly and even if the road force variation numbers are low, they will still cause vibration!

 

Typically a low force variation tire will require less weight to balance properly. However, it is still possible to balance a good tire totally wrong if an inexperienced technician does this! Believe me, if I have not seen many cases of totally incompetent wheel balancing done at dealerships, I would not be commenting like this!

The wheels on certain vehicles are not even hub centric, so it is impossible to achieve proper wheel balance without using special adapters. Centering cones are sometimes marginal for large diameter hub centric wheels. Lug adapters are much more efficient for proper balancing of such tires, but few dealerhsips use them as they are pricey.

 

 

You might try to pull off all balancing weights from your wheels to see if the ride improves somewhat because often improperly balanced wheels will vibrate more than unbalanced wheels! And take the truck to a good reputation independent tire shop to recheck the wheel balance.

Edited January 30, 2014 by pm26

[BringTheRain403]

Also you could have the best most experienced tech balance your tires but if the machine is out of calibration or broken they'll never get the balance right....

[hotrodz37]

Please understand that low road force variation and wheel balance are two completely different things. Low force variation simply means that the tire is not enough out of round to cause perceptible problems if properly balanced. A perfectly round tire would have zero road force variation. Few, if any of the tires are that good.

 

When you check a tire for road force variation on a machine such as Hunter 9700 series, a roller will press against the rotating whee/tire with substantial force to simulate on road conditions. Then the machine measures VARIATION in road force which is actually the function of out-of-roundedness of the tire. Let's suppose that all four tires have really low variation numbers, such as 4 lbs. As the next step, the machine will check for imbalance in the wheel assembly. Just because the road force variation is low, it does not mean that such tires will not cause vibration if not balanced properly. And here is the problem. If the machine is not calibrated properly, or the wheel is not correctly centered on the machine, or the rim width and diameter are not properly measured, the wheels may not get balanced properly and even if the road force variation numbers are low, they will still cause vibration!

 

Typically a low force variation tire will require less weight to balance properly. However, it is still possible to balance a good tire totally wrong if an inexperienced technician does this! Believe me, if I have not seen many cases of totally incompetent wheel balancing done at dealerships, I would not be commenting like this!

The wheels on certain vehicles are not even hub centric, so it is impossible to achieve proper wheel balance without using special adapters. Centering cones are sometimes marginal for large diameter hub centric wheels. Lug adapters are much more efficient for proper balancing of such tires, but few dealerhsips use them as they are pricey.

 

 

You might try to pull off all balancing weights from your wheels to see if the ride improves somewhat because often improperly balanced wheels will vibrate more than unbalanced wheels! And take the truck to a good reputation independent tire shop to recheck the wheel balance.

 

Thanks pm26,

 

I most certainly understand the difference between road force and wheel balancing. I was trying to state in short that everything had been checked on the tires without writing a novel. I agree that the wheels and tires have to be done by someone who knows what they are doing and what to look for. Everything was good on the wheel and tire front. Not only low road force, but tires balanced out with minimal weight and the lug adapter was used on 2 different sets of tires, one by the Dealer and another by a local tire shop where I know the owner and he was the one doing the work as I watched him. Consequently the tires done by the local shop, were the basis of what we are now testing because the dealer even agreed they rolled and balanced out better than the Michelins they put on etc.

 

I will keep everyone posted on anything I might find. Hopefully some of you will get lucky and it will be a tire issue that fixes it. I believe it to not be the case with mine as I have had 4 sets of tires and 2 different sets of wheels, and 2 different hunter road force machines at 2 different shops comparing specs etc.

Edited January 30, 2014 by hotrodz37

[pm26]

Thanks, it looks like you are doing everything correctly to eliminate at least one unknown. Try to check if the brake rotors are properly balanced, also I would inspect the front hubs. I had a problem with my Mazda 626 where the left front hub was improperly assembled (the bearing was pressed in crooked) and as a result the brake rotor could not be removed from the hub and the wheel had to be forced on (would not fit properly on the lug studs). This caused rather unpleasant vibration. After they replaced the hub and rotor the vibration stopped. This is unfortunately the reality these days - after they outsourced parts manufacturing to all kinds of third world countries, there are all kinds of problems with quality control, and inevitably some defective parts will get into new vehicles. Just luck of the draw you could say.

 

Some other sources of vibration:

 

1. Defective inner CV joints on front wheel drive vehicles often cause vibration under acceleration only. This can also happen on 4WD trucks without lock out hubs.

 

2. Loose or defective steering tie rods can cause vibration

 

3. Defective steering rack can cause vibration

 

4. Defective U joints (some manufacturers like mercedes Benz use rubber discs instead of U joints in their driveshafts to eliminate clunking.)

 

5. Defective or damaged center driveshaft support bearing (had this happen on a '95 Nissan 4X4 V6 pickup, the bearing support rubber bushing was torn, causing the driveshaft to move up and down, causing vibration very similar to badly balanced tires. Took me a while to find that one, but I found it and corrected it by replacing the bearing assembly.

 

6. Improperly balanced or bent driveshaft

 

7. Bad engine mounts, transmission mounts, or transfer case mounts.

 

It pays to examine everything systematically to see if you spot something obvious.

Edited January 30, 2014 by pm26

[Stex]

Test drive today on a short bed CC, 4x4, z-71, 3.42. 18s with GYs on them. It was a dealer trade and thus had 500 miles on it. Ran out just fine. No wheel balance issues at any speed. Even up to 80 on the interstate.

 

My 09 has LTX m/s2. That have been trued and high speed balanced on the truck. The '14 was close to that but I could tell Michelins would have improved it, esp with a true and balance on the truck.

[SLESierra]

Just got mine back new drive shaft and it is good to go. They road force balanced the tires yesterday did not do it, took a set of shop wheels/tires put on it did not do it, ordered me a new drive shaft because my yoke was not welded on straight and wala - I can still feel the hard tires but at least I know what that is that is not vibration but just feel every crack and break in the road surface but that is soon to change as well.

[pm26]

Just got mine back new drive shaft and it is good to go. They road force balanced the tires yesterday did not do it, took a set of shop wheels/tires put on it did not do it, ordered me a new drive shaft because my yoke was not welded on straight and wala - I can still feel the hard tires but at least I know what that is that is not vibration but just feel every crack and break in the road surface but that is soon to change as well.

Are you from Walla Walla, Washington by any chance?

Edited January 30, 2014 by pm26

[SLESierra]

Are you from Walla Walla, Washington by any chance?

nope just happy they found the issue