Tire Balancing on lifted truck-(solved)

[Quick_Shifter]

wow, you can tell that from the pic? The tires look brand new to me... I do not see any odd wear on any of the tires. But then again, lifted trucks with big tires are all new to me.

Big tires = big tread = very deceiving they look like they have meat but are badly worn. The inside of the tire looked more worn than the outside of the tire in the picture. I am going off a picture though so don’t take it as gospel. Put a penny in the treads on the inner and outer and see if it’s the same

 

[BWL]

Even balanced with uneven tread wear the tires will shake. If you're having suspension issues it can cause the tread blocks to wear uneven and the tires are toast. I suspect something with the lift is off. Checking suspension components and an alignment would be a start to me and if it's out then that likely caused uneven wear on the tread blocks. If the suspension was fixed prior to you buying it the shake may be all tires and new treads would fix it. That said Driveline shake in a lifted truck is also a possibility if it wasn't done right. My money in your situational I'd do an alignment first and try running some different wheels and tires on a highway run. Even just some stockers because Driveline shake will happen regardless of tire size since the pinion angles etc are not affected by tire size. If that solves it then new tires. There is also a chance one of the wheels is out of round.

 

[S7V7N]

Thanks again to everyone providing feedback!! I truly appreciate the advice.

 

[JaySloans69]

I had the same problem with the same size tires (Nitti TerraGrappler AT) but no lift on my 2016 Ram 2500 that Id bought used with rims off of OfferUp. They were in great shape and the ride was "ok" at first but it got rough pretty quick and for the next couple of months I got a really rough ride at 65+. I had them balanced, rotated, I bought hard plastic rings to keep them as centered as possible while installing, then rotated back, and still felt like the tires were bouncing all over the place on a normally smooth Frwy. Finally, I went to Firestone and the guy immediately says, oh there's your problem, the rear tire is separating. They didn't have a tire in stock and had to go elsewhere but night and day difference when I had that one tire changed. If you can't see it, it doesn't mean it's not separating it just means you will eventually. This happened to me twice and have had to replace a second BUT that one went through the Discount Tire and Nitto had some sort of warranty and it was about 300 less with the warranty. May want to go ahead with new tires... Good luck!

 

[tntdiddy]

I have 37x12.5/20 Cooper STT Pro's on my 2012 with a 4" Rough Country lift that I replace every 20K. This summer, during my final 5,000 miles I didn't rotate them or get an alignment, they became very uneven on the inside and shook at any speed. Put my new ones on (hard to find a shop that can do 37's), had them balanced, alignment done, and it rides as new again. I think you need a rotation and/or new tires.

 

[Nsmiller]

I have the same thing happening on my 2019 1500 Classic. Bought a full tire/wheel package with 20x9 -12 and General Grabber 275/60r20's. The tires themselves are the same as the stock size but the wheels are 1" wider with a little offset. I got the ION 181's and found out AFTER i got them and went to put them on the truck that the hub bore was 110 and the stock hub bore is 77.8. So I got hubcentric rings to fill the open gap. Put them on and the truck wobbled like a mother... was good from about 0 - 40, would wobble between 50 and 60, worse even in the 60 - 70mph range.. 70+ was ok.. Took it to my local Trick Trucks and had them re-balance all 4 wheels. It fixed it and feels pretty good from 0 - 70 with some intermittent wobble here and there but 70+ now is very apparent. The first set of hubcentric rings were the plastic kind so i went and found some aluminum thinking harder is better (that's what she said).. but didn't really notice a change.
I really don't want to go out and spend another $1200 on new tires only to find out no better and also don't want to spend another $1000 on wheels but keep the tires and find nothing better either... so, at a crossroad..
The wobble isn't horrendous but very annoying. ****** me off that after $2400 for a wheel/tire package it runs like it does and I know there are tens of thousands of people running hub bore fixes with rings that have no problems at all....

 

[rockmanm35]

I had a similar issue and found a shop that could do a "roadforce" balance and it went away.

BIll

 

[Wyathayden_]

I recently bought a 2016 RAM 1500 Express that has a Rough Country lift (think its 6in). This is my first RAM and lifted truck, and I am loving it very much. When I get up to 60-65 I get some moderate shaking in the steering wheel. I had the truck looked at by my local mechanic (because its used), and they said it looks great, everything is tight and firm underneath. Also, it only has 35k miles on it.

I thought maybe the tires needed to be balanced, so I took it to my local car mechanic. He said the tires were to big to get on his machine. I also tried COSTCO, Rice Tire, and called a few other places. No one would take the truck because of the tire size (or maybe the rim size?). I was recommended a local Off-Road shop that specializes in lifted trucks. They did the 4 wheel balance and after that it was 10 times worse. I was so depressed, I thought for sure a shop specializing in off road trucks would get it done right, but it rides horrible now.

I did some reading and there were many folks that recommended balance beads. I bought 4x 12oz bags of Counteract brand beads. I have not put them in yet, because I am not sure they will work. I read some folks say they do not work on wide tires.

Below are my tire/rim details. Anyone have experience with tires/rims like these? or balance beads? Any advice on how I should proceed would be greatly appreciated.

2016 RAM 1500
Rough Country lift

Tires: NITRO GRABBER 35x12.5 R22
Rims: Fuel 22in

Also, on a side note the sticker on the door jam says tire pressure should be 39psi. Does that sound right?

You are running name brand tires and wheels. Your problem most likely isn’t there. I used to have a rough country 6” lift on my 04 3500, i run it on 38x15.5r20 tires. Those lifts aren’t built very good at all. I had the death wobble, would shake super bad, and the bushings in the long arms needed to be replaced every 20k miles. I bought a “top gun custom” long arm lift (just the long arms) and a Carli trac bar and that solved all the issues. Good luck!

 

[S7V7N]

I took the truck to a shop that specializes in lifted trucks and the guy came out and looked under my front end. Within 10 seconds he asked me to look underneath. He showed me a rusted CV joint? (See pic 1) and said that it had play in it which it shouldn't. He said this play can cause steering wheel shake at speed. He said it was not like it to rust with only 35k miles on the truck. He said he normally sees them last to 100k.

He also mentioned something about rust and pointed to the left (pic 2).... not really sure what that all was, but he said it would be about 1500$ overall to fix.

Hope this fixes the issue.

 

[TDamron]

Try Discount Tire if they can do it ask for a road force balance to Special Machine to simulate the load on the tires had the same problem change tires two different times rims once and had my drive shaft balanced nothing helped until I had a road force balance. Done

 

[kurek]

I took the truck to a shop that specializes in lifted trucks and the guy came out and looked under my front end. Within 10 seconds he asked me to look underneath. He showed me a rusted CV joint? (See pic 1) and said that it had play in it which it shouldn't. He said this play can cause steering wheel shake at speed. He said it was not like it to rust with only 35k miles on the truck. He said he normally sees them last to 100k.

He also mentioned something about rust and pointed to the left (pic 2).... not really sure what that all was, but he said it would be about 1500$ overall to fix.

Hope this fixes the issue.

Got an action camera with a good clamp or magnetic mount? Point it at the joint and go for a drive.

The rust looks pretty normal for these, they don't paint those for some reason. I bought my Ram in Arizona and lived there until recently with it, still got the same rust mostly. I brushed on some rust converter a couple years back just because I hate looking at rust but its presence on the surface really isn't an indicator of a problem.

Being loose can be a problem though... can you record a video of how much play you see there (just point your phone camera at it and shake the CV axle) and post it here? Does your 4wd work correctly (can you make it crab walk in 4H/4L)

 

[ram1500rsm]

Little bit of play in there is normal. anybody can check right now get down there and try to wiggle the cv shaft where you see the rust in the picture. it'll prob move a littlle. If it's moves a lot then you have a problem.
For example last year @hodge-xj was trying to diagnose a vibration issue and we exchange videos with how our cv axels can move when forced by hand.

Mine shakes very little, his was moving and clunking a lot harder. i'll upload the videos to youtube then post them here. I have 108k miles now and i've never have any issues with vibration knocking on wood that wasn't associated with a wheel balancing issue. if i got the shakes i'll drive back to my local Americas Tires and have my wheel rebalanced. Funny the only tires that have given me issues were my Falken AT3W's in 315/70/17. I had to have them road force balanced. sold them cause i wasn't happy with those tires and i bought BFG KO2 37x12x17 without a single issue, Milestar Patagonia MT 315/70/17 without a single issue and now BFG KO2 315/70/17 without a single issue. I have never touched my cv axels so they're still bone stock.

 

[ram1500rsm]

This was Hodge-XJ cv axel play. He replaced the cv shafts and the passenger stub enventually. Notice how his cv is easy to shake, i called this abnormal play

Abnormal CV Axel play RAM 1500

For normal axel play, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Wx_9_VOBY

www.youtube.com

This was mine, it stills clunks a little, doesn't seem to move more than that, my truck doesn't vibrate so i call this normal cv shaft play

Normal CV Axel play RAM 1500

For Abnormal axel play see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xOxNx-xviA

www.youtube.com

 

[S7V7N]

This was Hodge-XJ cv axel play. He replaced the cv shafts and the passenger stub enventually. Notice how his cv is easy to shake, i called this abnormal play

Abnormal CV Axel play RAM 1500

For normal axel play, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Wx_9_VOBY

www.youtube.com

This was mine, it stills clunks a little, doesn't seem to move more than that, my truck doesn't vibrate so i call this normal cv shaft play

Normal CV Axel play RAM 1500

For Abnormal axel play see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xOxNx-xviA

www.youtube.com

Thanks for the videos. I was not able to figure out how to link my video.

I will say mine seems to be less than the abnormal video but more than your normal vid.

 

[heckcat9]

Thanks for the videos. I was not able to figure out how to link my video.

I will say mine seems to be less than the abnormal video but more than your normal vid.

It could still be your CV axle, hopefully it is and the problem will be fixed and good to go.

I had some Chinazon CV axles for a while on my old Toyota that had a bit less play than Hodge-XJ's, yet the front end still vibrated anytime I was doing 55+ mph with 4wd engaged.

 

[bdc2]

wow, you can tell that from the pic? The tires look brand new to me... I do not see any odd wear on any of the tires. But then again, lifted trucks with big tires are all new to me.

It looks like your siping no longer extends to the inside edge of the tread blocks like a new tire does. My ridge grapplers are to that point right now. They are starting to get loud and wander on the road. I think they’ve lost almost 2/3 of their tread depth.

 

[RaptorHD]

LOL, you guys make me laugh.. A CV axle will not make your front end shake, first it doesn't even spin fast enough, second, in 2WD its not engaged, though it will spin its not tied into the whole drive train.. I mean really, Did you guys fall asleep during your physics classes? Now if it were a drives shaft which spins up to 5 times faster depending on the gears maybe then but if the bearings are good--hardly..

Read my Post again on page one, it has everything you need to know about your problem, been there with heavier wheels and tires than these little trucks..

 

[heckcat9]

LOL, you guys make me laugh.. A CV axle will not make your front end shake, first it doesn't even spin fast enough, second, in 2WD its not engaged, though it will spin its not tied into the whole drive train.. I mean really, Did you guys fall asleep during your physics classes? Now if it were a drives shaft which spins up to 5 times faster depending on the gears maybe then but if the bearings are good--hardly..

Read my Post again on page one, it has everything you need to know about your problem, been there with heavier wheels and tires than these little trucks..

Are the CV axles not connected to the hubs and therefore wheels? How do they not "spin fast enough"?

 

[RaptorHD]

Are the CV axles not connected to the hubs and therefore wheels? How do they not "spin fast enough"?

Physics... for the shafts to be in a position to wobble or shake, they would have to spin--really fast! This is why they do not balance CV shafts for the most part..
Ok, Physics; The farther weight is applied from the center or rotation, the more the force is felt. Since a CV shaft is not very large in diameter any imbalance would be minimal..
This is why tires and wheels need to be balanced, not only does what I said apply, but the wheel in rotation stores energy, so when you put Precession in to play the steering components will amplify any issues with worn components.
Mostly, when you get wobble from steering, the steering system moves back and forth (left to right) and the hydraulics try to compensate to force the wheel the opposite direction but its reaction is too slow so by the time it could compensate its behind and amplifies the error and the wobble will get worse fast until you slow down and reduce the effect and your are fighting precession...

 

[kurek]

A 35" tire at 70mph is spinning around 670 rpm. The axle, the brake disc, wheel, tire, all one unit. A small imperfection at the tread surface is moving around at a circumferential speed of 70mph (same as the road speed) but an imperfection at a reference radius of 1.5 inches is only going 6mph around its path and only imparts 0.7% as much force assuming identical mass.

A loose axle could produce vibration but first you would want to find out why it became loose (they don't just do that on their own) and also the scale at which this could produce vibration is dramatically lower than the scale at which a wheel problem would produce vibration. I'd be looking for another cause, even if the CV cup is damaged it's probably more symptom than genesis.