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Shakerado Update


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Well for a quick refresher up to my point... My truck has had the arse end shake above 75MPH since new.  I had the driveshaft balanced which helped some.  Then I replaced the axle shafts with Yukons which helped also.  but I still had a shake over 75.  I replaced my KO's last weekend with Nitto G2's.  I witnessed the road force balance (huge thanks to Discount tire for an awesome balance job on the Hunter Elite!) which was amazingly low numbers.  3 - 18.  Took my truck out from Tampa to Orlando this week and had zero shake on both legs of the trip.  And on the way back today was really impressive.  Normally sunshine and high temps make the shake worse.  Well it was 100*F and sunny this afternoon.  Zero shake up to 81.  I finally got to cruise with traffic at 77-78.  My guess is the drive shaft and shafts help fix the shake, but the KO's had an imbalance which I was left with.  Either way, my truck is shake free with the new tires.  Thought I would share. 

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On 6/21/2019 at 9:15 PM, FL335i said:

Well for a quick refresher up to my point... My truck has had the arse end shake above 75MPH since new.  I had the driveshaft balanced which helped some.  Then I replaced the axle shafts with Yukons which helped also.  but I still had a shake over 75.  I replaced my KO's last weekend with Nitto G2's.  I witnessed the road force balance (huge thanks to Discount tire for an awesome balance job on the Hunter Elite!) which was amazingly low numbers.  3 - 18.  Took my truck out from Tampa to Orlando this week and had zero shake on both legs of the trip.  And on the way back today was really impressive.  Normally sunshine and high temps make the shake worse.  Well it was 100*F and sunny this afternoon.  Zero shake up to 81.  I finally got to cruise with traffic at 77-78.  My guess is the drive shaft and shafts help fix the shake, but the KO's had an imbalance which I was left with.  Either way, my truck is shake free with the new tires.  Thought I would share. 

I bought my truck with 36k miles on it. Had BRAND NEW KO2's on it at as well. I'm just over 75k miles and have FINALLY remedied my shake as well.

 

It's all about getting the right tech on balance machine. Local Big-O has a road force machine, and the "good tech" works on Saturday mornings it appears. This is the 3rd attempt at balancing these well, and he was able to get them all under 12lb of imbalance. Two had to be "rotated" on the rim to get them to balance well.

 

Just returned from a 600mi road trip. No significant shake all the way up to 85mph. A good balancing is the key, with my suspicion that this chassis is just overly sensitive to tire imbalance.

 

I swapped in a set of Bilstein 5100's after reading all the great reviews here and elsewhere......meh, should've kept my $350 or so. The stock Ranchos were still in decent condition, and there was no major difference in damping or ride between the two. No serious seat of the pants improvement with the shocks. They're nice and shiny though, guess that's something.

 

I'll be moving to a P-Rated tire on the next set. Most likely Continentals. As much as I love the look and tank tread like traction of the KO2's, the noise and harsh ride aren't worth it to me. I spend more than 75% of my time on the freeway commuting to/from the office, a smooth ride and lower noise will be a welcome change.

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2 hours ago, 2kwik4u said:

 

It's all about getting the right tech on balance machine

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!  After replacing 3 tires and having 5 road force balancing sessions, I finally got my shake to where it only appears at about 83 or so.

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Well my KO2's were E load.  Me and the tech worked hours to RF them on the 9700 Hunter.  About 29-33 Lbs is the best we could do.  Turning tires etc.  The Nitto's got in the 3-13 range on the first shot at 40psi.  The one at 18 lbs was at 48psi when it was RF'd so I let it go and chalked it up to the higher psi.  I will say, the G2's are winning me over for daily driver and job site use. 

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10 hours ago, FL335i said:

Well my KO2's were E load.  Me and the tech worked hours to RF them on the 9700 Hunter.  About 29-33 Lbs is the best we could do.  Turning tires etc.  The Nitto's got in the 3-13 range on the first shot at 40psi.  The one at 18 lbs was at 48psi when it was RF'd so I let it go and chalked it up to the higher psi.  I will say, the G2's are winning me over for daily driver and job site use. 

My KO2's (D Load Range) took a fair amount of work to get balanced as well. I'm thinking anything under 15lb is the range to shoot for when balancing.

 

I think GM needs to find themselves a new harmonics engineer or two. My '06 Trailblazer SS was the same way. Took a LOT of work to get the tires balanced low enough that it didn't cause a noticeable shake. That vehicle was also very sensitive to tire balance.

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