Rotated tires now have a serious wobble!

cokedrvrbjw · March 18, 2006

WTF is going on. I am running Xterrains and i just rotated my tires for the first time since ive had them. When i first got them, i had them mounted and balanced. Today i moved the rears to the fronts and visa versa. I made sure to torque all the lug nuts. Took it for a ride just after and now there is a serious wobble, it feels like the truck is going to fall apart. What could it be, how can i fix it? By serious i mean the ENTIRE truck wobbles as well as the steering wheel. Should i just put them back the way they were? The most wobble happens at about 40, i didnt dare go over that. Could they just need to be rebalanced? However i never had a problem the way they were. Thanks for any help!

billcar9999 · March 19, 2006

You may have knocked off some weights or the wheel isn't seated properly against the hub or you cross threaded some lugs and the wheel isn't really tight. I'd put them back to see if the problem changes. If you used air tools it's possible that the wheel isn't centered correctly.

Bill

mmmikkke · March 19, 2006

Sounds like the problem wheel is (currently) on the front axle. So I'd jack up the front end, and spin each front tire by hand and look for which one wobbles. Then I'd examine that one in particular--whether it's properly seated against the hub, whether it has a shifted belt, whether it's out of round, etc.

There are sometimes little spring-clip retainers on the wheel studs (where they come through disc brake rotors) that should be removed when mounting aftermarket wheels. Maybe those weren't removed. (They're just a retainer to keep the brake rotor in place while it goes down the assembly line--they have no other purpose.)

SandShots · April 12, 2006

allright, first of all what size tire are we talking about here.

from what it sounds like is that tire is not balanced right.

you wont feel it that bad in the rear because its mounted to a solid axle.

up front you IFS wich will move around alot due to unbalanced tires.

this sounds stupid but make sure you didnt mount the wheel with one lug nut between the rim and the disc. ive seen guys do this.

the only other wobble ive seen is when the shocks are bad, the tire will just bounce up and down with the spring the only thing working. but im sure your shocks are still good unless one is just hanging from a lost mount bolt.