I am still trying to fix a vibration issue on my 2000 4Runner Limited stock. When I go 65 MPH or more the car feels like it's going to fall apart. I've bought new tires (265-75-16 Wrangler Silent Armor), bought used OEM wheels, replaced tranny mount, had the tires balanced 10 times, and have had two different stealerships make sure that everything it tight (bearings, bushings, rack and pinion, joints, drive lines, etc.) Any ideas on what could be causing this? I've even called Toyota directly and they've opened a case for me (no word back yet).

I'm about ready to drive the damn thing off a cliff.

 

alignment?

 

U-joint??

 

Sounds like a drive line problem to me.... but it would seem as if Toyota or any other mechanic would have been able to tell you that. Sounds like you've checked all the areas which would cause such a vibration.

Any idea on where this vibration is propagating from? Front/Rear? Does it depend on your driving speed or your engine rpms?

 

bad cv maybe?

 

Not to discount how bad bad is but some of the things Ive experianced that are annoying as it gets are.

1. Massive driveshaft runout from a bend driveline.
2. Mud packed rotor slots or heavily our of balance junk brake drums or stockers that lost a balance weight.
3. Does it vibrate sitting still in neutral with the engine RPM up where 65 MPH would be,say 3000K RPM + -. bad clutch or flywheel or flexplate/converter balance issue. Does it vibrate while coasting down hill in neutral at the speed. Does the steering wheel shake or the entire truck,front or back?
4. Many shops dont know how to balance wheels,not sure if yours are hub centric or lug centric.
5. Tire delamination after rotation and reversing its original direction.
6. Bent rear axle flange.

 

Alignment was done by dealership.

All U-Joints check out.

Rear Axle looks good.

Shaking at 65 MPH and above.

Put truck in neutral while going that fast, and it still shakes.

Shaking occurs in front and back and steering wheel does shake.

Sitting still and in neutral at 3000 RPM car does not shake.

Could worn out struts and shocks be leading to creating out of round tires? My 4Runner has 140K miles now, and I highly doubt that shocks/struts have been replaced. Thanks guys!

 

Rear drive shaft could be out of balance, unlikely with a stock truck though... Shouldn't be the tires.. How many miles on them? I assume you got them to try to solve the shaking, and they didn't fix it?
Could be suspension related, not likely though.

You got an alignment?

If the steering shakes its most likely wheel/tire related..

 

steering rack bushings spring to my mind...Tie rod inners/outers another thought.The rack itself is a weak point-read up about how to verify looseness within the rack. Don't replace the rack without trying bushings first. I went to the poly bushings and my shaking has decreased (improved) but is still present on some surfaces and some speeds.

You don't mention the wheels have been balanced alone-though a competent tire shop should have caught/noticed this when mounting the new tires. What is the variability amongst the weights needed to balance each tire? Is there one tire or two running with significantly more weight than the other 3 or two? You have of course swapped tire positions to narrow down that possibility I presume.

There are a lot of possibilities involved here. I believe a recent posting about this very topic was solved with replacement of the rear control arm bushings. Page backwards just a few pages. It might have been over on T4R.org as well.

Yes it is certainly time for new shocks, but I am not sure that would be causing the shaking. What kind of readout did you get with the alignment? Was there excessive camber or caster or toe in/out?

This is a fairly common issue. Search shaking/shimmy via Google or these forums to get more ideas of what to check.

 

could have been the rear stabilizer bushings also- these terms mix me up a bit and I am not a mechanic and not pretending to be....

 

I'm just gonna throw this out there, but I had a similar issue when one of my front hubs was locked without my knowledge. Only at freeway speeds did it creep up. Maybe something is not disengaging, hope this helps.

 

I have the same tires and have had a helluva time getting them balanced correctly. When I first had them put on, I had no problems and I actually was surprised at how smooth they road. But by the 1st rotation and balancing at 10k miles, they were starting to be noticeably rougher. At that point at started a 4 rounds of re-balancing, an alignment, etc. No luck. So I had 2 of the 4 replaced under warranty and the problem was drastically improved but not totally fixed. I finally found a place that road-force balanced them and that really got things going better.

Also, I think if your shocks (and possibly your springs) are fairly used up, these tires will test them. They weigh around 10 pounds more than stock, so I went ahead and replaced my rear shocks with Bilsteins HD and plan to do the fronts here soon.

 

Thank you for the post. Update.. Today I took my 4Runner back to GoodYear. They actually replaced all four tires and road-forced them for free. They also swapped out the size to 265-70-16 Wrangler Silent Armor, which I asked for. The shaking is dramatically reduced, but still is there at 65. So, I am off to get new struts, shocks, and new steering bushings on Thursday. I did some searching and do see that other YT users have had the same problem, but haven't found a real solution. I'll keep posting updates.

 

I've been researching all over the web about the 4Runner vibration. This looks like many owners suffer from this at some point. Here is one post that talks about adding rear differential lubricant... Could that really be causing the whole car to shake? Any one familiar with doing that? LINK: http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-ge...mystery-2.html

Thanks folks.

 

Is the driveline phased properly? 1 spline off and it could cause this...

 

What does phased mean? Still a noober...

 

Phasing is a term that describes the alignment of the single-cardan joints on opposite ends of the drive shaft

Read up on 4crawlers site, he explains it very well.

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri....shtml#Phasing

 

Did it shake like that before you put new tires/wheels on? How did they check the u-joints? I ask because this really sounds like a u-joint issue to me. Maybe they didn't check them all or they did a 1/2 a$$ed job of checking them?? I've had 2 4runners and my parents had one before that and every one of them had this issue around 150-200K and it turned out to be u-joints on all of them.

 

Thanks again for all of the responses. The car did shake before the new tires were put on... I've had the u-joints tested by people grabbing the driveline and trying to shake it to see movement in the u-joints.

I am going to go ahead and replace them this week before our long trip to Washington. I will be back to report. Thank you!

 

One word...........Goodyear...........they suck, the wrangler silent armor should only be used on heavy trucks like f250's and any other 2500 series pickup. silent armor tires will beat the crap out of light weight trucks.