I own a 2006 Tundra with 106k miles. About two months ago I noticed a shimmy at highway speeds. I took it in to a tire shop to have the tires rotated and balanced. The shimmy was still there so I thought I got a lazy tire shop that just rotated the tires. So a couple of weeks later I took the truck into another tire shop to balance the tires again. Once on the highway the shimmy is still there above 60mph. The tires only have about 12k miles on them and the tire pressures are good. I’m wondering if I need to replace any suspension components or bushings? Please let me know a good place to start to get my truck riding smooth again. Thanks.
get the alignment checked. Surprised the tire shops didn’t suggest that. Have them check the suspension and steering components at the time, which they usually do.
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I’ve been through this nightmare years ago. The balancing of the tires are very finicky; especially with steel over aluminum rims. They generally need to be road force balanced. Preferably with a setting of 20 lbs of runout rather than the 40 lb standard for truck tires (if using a hunter machine). You can have the same shop do the work provided they can accurately mount the tire on the machine without it wobbling when it spins. Nowadays I have the shop use a centering adapter to force the mounting to be correct on the balancer instead when I get new tires.
EDIT: There might be another issue since the tires haven’t been removed when you first noticed the shimmy.
A slightly bent rim could cause this. Do you remember hitting a curb?
Another idea, a wheel weight fell off a while ago but you didn’t notice it at first, or ignored it. Wheel weights fall off cars all the time, I have a coffee can full of them I’ve found along side the road during walk-a-bouts. In turn that constant shimmying from the lost weight affected or even possibly damaged the tire. And now it can’t be balanced out. Suggest to remove that tire and one that doesn’t shimmy and compare the tread in good light from all angles. You may see a pattern in the tread of the shimmying tire has developed. If so, no amount of balancing will get rid of that. So ask you tire store if they can shave it down a little to remove the pattern, then re-balance.
I haven’t hit a curb or locked up the brakes. At least not on this set of tires. I’ll go to a good tire shop and see if their machine can figure out which one is causing the shimmy. I don’t think it’s any of the front tires since the steering wheel doesn’t vibrate.