Seat/Center Console Vibrations

[Sgambots91]

Bought my 2019 Classic Warlock back in January 2020. Didn’t notice any vibrations at all with truck entirely stock. Then again, I also wasn’t looking out for vibrations as it never crossed my mind.

about a month or so later, I wanted beefier tires. Put on 295/60/20 Atturo Trailblade XT. The vibrations coming from front seat/center console area at around 60mph and up, was horrific. Wouldn’t be able to keep a drink in cup holder without it violently shaking. Brought it back to shop 3 times to check balance. Never fixed the problem.

Finally had them put the stock Goodyear tires back on. Vibrations pretty much went away, but I still felt it on occasion, but nowhere near as bad. I figured the Atturo tires were cheap and main cause of problem.

fast forward a couple more months, I bought Nitto Ridge Grapplers in stock 275/60/20 size. I did not like the wet traction with stock SRA. I figured a quality tire and with the stock size, I shouldn’t have any problems. Well I was somewhat right. Vibrations came back. Not nowhere near as bad as the Atturo’s, but definitely noticeable. Had them road forced balanced which seemed to help a little bit. But I’m still experiencing vibrations.

the fact I’m feeling vibrations with 3 sets of tires has me thinking there’s no way it can be tire related. I’ve rotated my tires as well to see if maybe a bent rim but vibrations stay the same and didn’t move to front of car. Steering wheel has 0 vibrations.

I have installed Bilstein 5100 with eibach springs up front and a 1.5” coil spacer since. I also have 2” wheel spacers. But I had these vibrations when my suspension was completely stock and no wheel spacers.

this weekend I will take out the rear coil spacer and wheel spacers to see if it helps any, but I’m doubting it.

can a truck this new have driveshaft issues? How would I check? What about rear shocks? I was thinking of installing the Bilstein shocks in the rear.

I took it to dealer and they tried to blame it on my aftermarket exhaust (carven progressive muffler). But again, vibrations were there before this modification. They also said could be tires but I just had them road force balanced. Then they charged me diagnosis fee for doing absolutely nothing.

it seems the more aggressive tires are making these vibrations feel worse, but they were still there with street tires. I’m debating selling the nitto tires and putting some Michelin defenders on but I like the AT look. But I’m worried this shaking could lead to bigger problems down the road if I don’t get it resolved.

any feedback will be appreciated

 

[NJMOPAR]

Sounds like your problems began and continue with the tire shop.
I'd go somewhere else and have them check the rims, could be a bent hub if the first shop employs idiots. (the wheels are the constant in this equation of multiple tire types)

 

[Sgambots91]

Sounds like your problems began and continue with the tire shop.
I'd go somewhere else and have them check the rims, could be a bent hub if the first shop employs idiots. (the wheels are the constant in this equation of multiple tire types)

the first time I went to shop to put the Atturo tires on, I went to mavis.

after I bought the nitto tires, I said hell no to mavis and went to local shop with good reviews.

then when I got the tires road forced balanced, I went to a different local shop.

I wonder if mavis messed up my truck?

 

[phantomfixer]

I have Michelin defenders on my 2016 and they're great.Also,do you have a Discount Tire Store near you.They are absolutely the best for tire sales and issues.

 

[Sgambots91]

I have Michelin defenders on my 2016 and they're great.Also,do you have a Discount Tire Store near you.They are absolutely the best for tire sales and issues.

I hear nothing but good things about them. But I rather not order new tires if I don’t have to. These nitto tires probably have like 4K miles on them, if that.

And no unfortunately no discount tire near me.

 

[RamInfo]

1. Have the truck blocked up and check the wheels for lateral runout and a bent condition. These will often not get caught by checking balance. If you find a wheel not running true, swap it with another to see if it’s the wheel or a truck component- axle, hub, etc.

2. Make sure the shop doing the balancing uses a pin plate to mount the wheel while balancing. That centers the wheel the way it will center on the lug studs, and not on the center borehole.

I had to have two of the wheels on my Laramie straightened by an aftermarket wheel shop, when the truck was new. My shake has returned and I have a third wheel that will get straightened when I mount new Michelin’s this month. And no, I don’t hit curbs, park stops, or chuckholes. All the wheels on my truck ran out of true when new, and I’ve only straightened enough of them as needed to reduce or eliminate my console shake at the time. It’s enough to make me look at aftermarket wheels...

best,
DG

 

[Sgambots91]

Wheel spacers are coming off this weekend. If I have time, taking out the rear coil spacers too.

I’m also going to get the truck on a lift and see if the wheels spin true. I have a feeling this isn’t a wheel/tire issue, but I’ll still give it a shot.

 

[Niko Lacasse]

Mine was violently shaking in the console and front seats i could not stand it anymore and that was with, some brand new duratracs. got them balanced again no fix, finally the problem was too low tire pressure, they set it at 45lbs of air and now driving great no more vibrations at all,

 

[89grand]

Mine is all stock, and my center couple holder shakes at times too. I don't feel it anywhere else, not in my seat or the steering wheel, just the jump seat cup holder. I bought the truck new, so I took it back to the dealer. They ended up replacing 3 of the 4 Goodyears, and it's better now, but still isn't completely gone. Mine does it most around 70-75mph, but all the time.

I think it's just how the jump seat cup holder is, at least to some degree. It certainly shouldn't shake to point of not being able to put a cup in it. Mine just makes ice in a cup rattle around a little.

 

[Gary2]

I went through the same issue . I never noticed it til I put 35-12.50-20 BFG E rated KO2's. had them balanced a number of times a number of different places and few different ways . No change . I found that the weight of the tires seem to be what exposed the vibes. In the end I replaced them with Nitto Terra grapplers 275-65-20 which are an 1/2" shorter and an inch narrower but being I think an XL rating they are about 20lbs per tire lighter . That was on my 2014 which my daughter has now and I have a 17 with the same tires vibe free also. About the only thing that rotates about the same speed as the tires to produce a vibe about the same frequency as a bad tire that I did not change was the intermediate shafts in the front axle housing . The CV shafts wobble so much even when the truck is new its hard to tell how much is bad but I also swapped them anyway. I had a similar vibe in my 03 and it was the CV shaft so thats the first thing I swapped on the 14 and like I said did not help on this truck . I wish you luck . Very few people have posted a cure but many have had it and asked on here. The search tool may give you a better idea what you may be up against

 

[bigred90gt]

I have a vibration once I get over 70. My passenger seat shakes pretty bad if no one is sitting in it, but have no issues with the console (I have the full console, not the jumpseat). 2wd crew cab with 285/60 20 Nitto Ridge Grapplers. Ive had the tires for a couple of years, so I couldnt tell you if it did it before I got them. When these wear out, I'm going back to OEM size and not E rated. If I can remember, I'll post up if it fixed it, but that is still a few months away at least.

 

[71Peters]

All,
Unfortunately, this is a huge problem that Ram won't acknowledge. I have a 2015 Ram 4x4 Laramie. I have been playing this game for over 2 years now (vibration at highway speeds...but its not consistent). I can be doing 75mph with my cruise on and it will ride like a Cadillac, then out of no where it will start vibrating my center console and the seats. I have replaced the tires 3x over 2 years (I am running Michelins now), the drive shaft, axle shafts, rotors and the shocks have all be replaced as well. Tires have been balanced, road forced at many different locations and none of this corrected the problem. The dealer was helpful at first but then it came to a point that they just didn't know what to do next...and this is right at the time my warranty expired. I have forked out so much money already with no solution. I have read countless posts on many different websites and a lot of people are experiencing the same thing I am. I honestly think there is a design flaw somewhere that might be to costly to actually repair via recall. I say this because of all the dealerships out there that have tried to fix this problem...with no success. Its easy to replace tires, drive shafts, axle shafts, rotors and any other components in the driveline. But when the dealer, who is supposed to be the expert when it comes to your vehicle and has direct access to the auto manufactures engineering department for assistance...comes up with nothing...that's a problem. Our trucks are not that old, mine was 3yrs old when I started experiencing vibrations. I have read posts of even newer trucks experiencing the same thing. I read a well written post earlier from a gentleman that went a lot further than I did...as in recreational maintenance (meaning throwing money at replacing everything in hopes you find the problem and don't) and his last sentence went along the lines as...Dodge/FCA wont say there is a vibration problem and that if you have a vibration, your stuck with it.

If you have a Ram 1500/2500 and it doesn't vibrate at highway speeds then you should consider yourselves lucky. A lot of Ram owners out there...are not so lucky.

 

[corneileous]

Well I guess I gotta add my situation as well since it sounds like it’s a lot of the same issues that everybody else has posted here said.

When I bought my truck brand new in 2018- well, I bought it just after Christmas in 17; the truck is a 2018 and while on the stock SRA’s, I don’t recall any vibration at all whatsoever.

Then about 1500 miles into my brand new truck, I decided to take the stock SRA’s off while they were still practically brand new so that I could get the most money out of them to go towards the new stock sized BFG all-terrain‘s that I had bought to go on my truck; ran those for about nine months and at about around the seventh month mark, I decided to buy me some inch and a half bora spacers just to widen the look up.

In somewhere between that point and the last two months I had those tires, that’s when I started to notice that I had a slight vibration about like what everybody else is experiencing. Well, since I was already getting tired of the much rougher ride on my truck from those tires being an eight ply and from what I was told how much air pressure I had to run in those, I thought that maybe my vibration could be coming from the tires so that’s when I went back down to the tire shop again and bought me a set of those Michelin defender LTX tires; left the spacers on, and drove it around for a week, still had that vibration so then I thought maybe my vibration could be attributed to those wheel spacers, even though they were the better wheel spacers that were hubcentric and everything else, well, I took the wheel spacers off, put the wheels back on, and I still had that vibration.

Well about probably a month or so later, I got to thinking that because my factory Limited wheels have to use the stick on weights behind the flange because they don’t have the outer lip on the outside of the wheels to put regular wheel weights on, I noticed one day that the last time I had got tires, they didn’t remove the sticky foamy stuff that holds those wheel weights on where the old weights were so I couldn’t really tell if maybe I had lost a wheel weight or if it might’ve been because of that sticky residue from an old weight so I went back down to the tire shop to have the tires rebalanced and again, that might’ve helped a tiny bit but fast forward to present time, I’ve still always had that slight vibration where my passenger side seat back kind of vibrates at about 60 to 70 miles an hour. Thoughts?

No steering wheel shimmy tho, just in the seats and if there’s a bottle of water in one of the cupholders, it looks pretty much just like in the movie movie Jurassic Park when the T-Rex started walking up to the car they were in when that cup of water had them ripples in it… LOL.

The last time I did an oil change, as the oil was draining out I was on my creeper and I rolled all the way around the bottom of my truck checking bolts and making sure that they were all tight and even looked at my drive line just to see if any of the factory driveline weights might’ve come off but, I didn’t see nothing like that out of the ordinary.

Could I have a bad wheel? The truck now only has about 29,000 miles on it, I don’t take it off road or hardly on any gravel roads but some of our highways around here are a little bit on the rough side but all in all, the truck gets really well taken care of.


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[Anonymous007]

I just went through this, bought new tires 2 weeks ago, the place didnt balance them right, took them to a place that does road force balance and they showed me they were waaay off. They balanced them right and now smooth as butter.

I suggest you takenit where they do road force balance


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[corneileous]

Mine was violently shaking in the console and front seats i could not stand it anymore and that was with, some brand new duratracs. got them balanced again no fix, finally the problem was too low tire pressure, they set it at 45lbs of air and now driving great no more vibrations at all,

Are those Duratracks of yours the stock 20 inch size? Are they P rated? I guess I could try that with my 20 inch wheel, p rated Michelin’s, inflate them to their max of 44 and see what happens.


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[corneileous]

Well, a little update into my situation; I tried running my pressures up to 44 which feels like it made my vibration a lot worse and then I aired them down to about 35 which seemed to help a tiny bit but I still got the vibration so I guess maybe one of these days it’s time to go to the tire shop to have them re-balanced.


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[Gary2]

you may remember I went through the same BS with the vibe on my red 2014 RCSB. Going to a lighter tire stopped it but it should not required that. My daughter owns that truck now. My friend's 2015 has just started the same issue . He did new CV shafts being one fell apart. He sent me a picture of his next attempt which is the new intermediate shaft for passenger side. Even the new CV shafts have so much wobble where it connects to the intermediate shaft he decided to give that a shot. I had a feeling that may of been my issue also . What ever it is seems to be rotating about the same speed as the tires. The intermediate shafts is all thats left rotating at the speed of the tires. We will be installing his new shaft soon. I wish Ram would of looked at a Tacoma's front end before they came up with a design. Theirs ride in a bearing to support the cv shaft so ya get a nice tight non wobbling fit. He also has stock tires so going to a lighter tire is not an option for him

 

[Sgambots91]

I had mine road forced balanced and still have the vibrations. It’s very subtle right now after that but still there. I’m thinking of picking up some 17” ram rebel wheels with open country tires. If this fixed it then I’m thinking it’s my wheels.

 

[corneileous]

I had mine road forced balanced and still have the vibrations. It’s very subtle right now after that but still there. I’m thinking of picking up some 17” ram rebel wheels with open country tires. If this fixed it then I’m thinking it’s my wheels.

I don’t doubt that it could be in one or more of your wheels but shouldn’t the road force balance correct it? I dunno, after researching what a road-force tire balance is, I don’t ever think I’ve had that done at all on any vehicle I’ve owned. If a tire shop is equipped to do that, is that the kind of balance they do automatically when you buy a set of new tires, or do they just do the regular ole spin balance? The last two times I’ve bought tires it’s been at a discount tire but I don’t know what they did to balance my tires. Is this usually something you have to ask specifically for? I may have to call up my local discount tire tomorrow who put my tires on little over two years ago.

But anywho, who knows. I love my factory Limited wheels but if they are in fact causing my vibrations, I may just after all have a reason to get new wheels.


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[Sgambots91]

I don’t doubt that it could be in one or more of your wheels but shouldn’t the road force balance correct it? I dunno, after researching what a road-force tire balance is, I don’t ever think I’ve had that done at all on any vehicle I’ve owned. If a tire shop is equipped to do that, is that the kind of balance they do automatically when you buy a set of new tires, or do they just do the regular ole spin balance? The last two times I’ve bought tires it’s been at a discount tire but I don’t know what they did to balance my tires. Is this usually something you have to ask specifically for? I may have to call up my local discount tire tomorrow who put my tires on little over two years ago.

But anywho, who knows. I love my factory Limited wheels but if they are in fact causing my vibrations, I may just after all have a reason to get new wheels.


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You usually have to ask to have them road force balanced. Also a road force balancer will not flag bad/bent wheels.