smoothee
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2012
- Posts
- 1,321
- Reaction score
- 684
- Location
- St. John's, NL
- Ram Year
- 2011
- Engine
- Hemi 5.7
I apologize in advance for the length of this but I'm at my witts end here and don't even enjoy driving my truck anymore. This has been a long ongoing issue, that I will say started years after I installed my 4" lift so I can't blame it directly on that although it may have contributed.
The main thing I'm finding right now is the truck hits bumps very hard, almost feels like the front end is bottoming out and the steering wheel wants to come out on my hands. And at highway speeds when I hit a bridge joint it feels like the front tires nearly leave the pavement. I've had an alignment and wheel balancing done yesterday and the truck drives straight with no vibrations or anything otherwise. Steering feels nice and tight.
I used to be feel it more in the rear too, but not as bad since upgrading everything to Core and Hellwig sway bar and BDS relocation brackets. I did blow through a couple of sets of Fox and Bilstein rear shocks which I couldn't explain, truck only has 65k miles. There's still some shimmy there though.
I've checked everything over myself (and do my own work) and I've had the truck to several shops and none of them could find anything out of the originary. Several alignments and wheel balancing. I've played around with tire pressure, right now sitting at 30psi on my D rated Duratracs. This was happening before with my Toyo's as well though so I can't confidently blame it on the tires.
I swapped my bilstein 5100's for 6112's, added SuspensionMaxx sway bar links, replaced wheel bearings, lower and upper ball joints, tie rod ends, lower steering intermediate shaft, etc. I don't have any noises or clunks anywhere.
The weirdest thing to me is when I replace a failed part the issue goes away for a very short time until the new part is broken in. Eg. I just replaced the upper control arms last week and the issue pretty much disappeared for a few days. I could drive over washboards and hardly feel anything at all. Same thing happened when I replaced my LCA's, and steering shaft (which was shot). It rode beautifully for about a month. It's almost like there's still an underlying issue here that the new parts just seem to mask for a short time. I don't get it.
Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm ready to light a match lol. I don't expect it to ride like a Caddy especially being a single cab, but I know what it has rode like in the past. Also does this look like a quality alignment job?
I appreciate it!
The main thing I'm finding right now is the truck hits bumps very hard, almost feels like the front end is bottoming out and the steering wheel wants to come out on my hands. And at highway speeds when I hit a bridge joint it feels like the front tires nearly leave the pavement. I've had an alignment and wheel balancing done yesterday and the truck drives straight with no vibrations or anything otherwise. Steering feels nice and tight.
I used to be feel it more in the rear too, but not as bad since upgrading everything to Core and Hellwig sway bar and BDS relocation brackets. I did blow through a couple of sets of Fox and Bilstein rear shocks which I couldn't explain, truck only has 65k miles. There's still some shimmy there though.
I've checked everything over myself (and do my own work) and I've had the truck to several shops and none of them could find anything out of the originary. Several alignments and wheel balancing. I've played around with tire pressure, right now sitting at 30psi on my D rated Duratracs. This was happening before with my Toyo's as well though so I can't confidently blame it on the tires.
I swapped my bilstein 5100's for 6112's, added SuspensionMaxx sway bar links, replaced wheel bearings, lower and upper ball joints, tie rod ends, lower steering intermediate shaft, etc. I don't have any noises or clunks anywhere.
The weirdest thing to me is when I replace a failed part the issue goes away for a very short time until the new part is broken in. Eg. I just replaced the upper control arms last week and the issue pretty much disappeared for a few days. I could drive over washboards and hardly feel anything at all. Same thing happened when I replaced my LCA's, and steering shaft (which was shot). It rode beautifully for about a month. It's almost like there's still an underlying issue here that the new parts just seem to mask for a short time. I don't get it.
Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm ready to light a match lol. I don't expect it to ride like a Caddy especially being a single cab, but I know what it has rode like in the past. Also does this look like a quality alignment job?
I appreciate it!