steering wheel shakes at random

[04SS99Denali]

when my tires were bad my steering would wobble around at 50+. felt like when you drive through hard wind gusts

 

[JochenWoern]

I had the same issue a few weeks back on my 05 Tahoe, I noticed that you have 20" tires on your ride as well. I found that my Bridgestone tires which have around 20,000 miles had 36 psi of air pressure in each tire so I lowered them down to 32 psi and re-set the TPMS sensors. I then drove it to get the tires warm and came back and checked the tire pressure again which showed 34 psi on three of the wheels and 33 on the other so I adjusted the one wheel up tp 34 psi and re-set the TPMS sensors one more time .

The DIC shows 32 psi when the tires are cold, and usually 2 psi per wheel higher after it is driven a few miles. The difference between the 36 psi and 32 psi tire pressure solved the problem I had with the steering wheel shimmy, 32 psi is what I would suggest setting your tire pressures on and give it a try. The balance on each wheel needs to have the weights placed on the inside, and outside of the rim to get a good balance, if you have custome wheels I would have the stick on weights placed as close to the center of the wheel as possible, if the wheel is still way off balance have the tire shop dismount the tire and spin it a half turn from the valve stem and re-balance it again.

Not to high jack this thread, but HOW does your DIC show the tire pressures? My '06 YUKON only says "TIRE PRESSURES", but there are no psi readings attached to any tires at all. The Guy at BIG O Tires told me that this was not possible with my truck, all I had was the yellow warning light on the dash which would indicate if one of the tires was loosing pressures.

Can you confirm? Is there a way to actually see the PSI Readings per each tire on the DIC?

Thanks.

 

[samclow64]

When my DIC shows the words tire pressure, I press the arrow button <----- on the steering wheel and it allows me to toggle thru the LF, RF, LR, and RR tire pressure in PSI.

 

[JochenWoern]

When my DIC shows the words tire pressure, I press the arrow button <----- on the steering wheel and it allows me to toggle thru the LF, RF, LR, and RR tire pressure in PSI.

Thanks very much Sam. I played with the darn thing and figured it out this weekend.

Again, many thanks!

 

[mhorn0817]

i wound up replacing the pitman arm, idler arm and idler bracket and got aligned and the problem has gone away for a while now

 

[CEN2MENTAL95]

You never know you might have the wheel balanced but the tire might have a bad spot on it. The balance machine will not see that it will just weight it out evenly even though that bad spot will cause an issue when driving.

a regular balance machine will not see a tire defect, that is correct. BUT a Hunter ROADFORCE balancer will, and will tell you how to spin the tire on the rim if you have a bad spot and then recheck for it again. That's called tire run in/run out.

after alll the years of having balancing issues on my Lexus GS400 and my current Acura Legend, I have become a "balancing expert."

 

[M3PO]

I scanned through this thread and my Denali with the OEM 20's does the same or similar. My buddy thinks he has this narrowed down to the tires. He was asking me questions and we came to the conclusion it is when the truck sits for a while (overnight or more) and the tires are cold. When driving down to his property all was well, we took my truck out first thing AM on the highway and the steering wheel had a bad shimmy, as I drove the shimmy went away after about 5 miles. Since then I have confirmed my wheel only shimmies when I leave the truck sit for a while and the shimmy is on cold tires. I know this may or may not help, I am still left asking myself "do I throw away half tread tires?" I think I will ride them out a little longer, but I am **** and like things to be fixed.

 

[CEN2MENTAL95]

I scanned through this thread and my Denali with the OEM 20's does the same or similar. My buddy thinks he has this narrowed down to the tires. He was asking me questions and we came to the conclusion it is when the truck sits for a while (overnight or more) and the tires are cold. When driving down to his property all was well, we took my truck out first thing AM on the highway and the steering wheel had a bad shimmy, as I drove the shimmy went away after about 5 miles. Since then I have confirmed my wheel only shimmies when I leave the truck sit for a while and the shimmy is on cold tires. I know this may or may not help, I am still left asking myself "do I throw away half tread tires?" I think I will ride them out a little longer, but I am **** and like things to be fixed.

i have this problem with all my cars...its called "flat spotting"

nothing wrong with the tire....

 

[M3PO]

i have this problem with all my cars...its called "flat spotting"

nothing wrong with the tire....

Not arguing with you; you are right tires do get flat spots when they sit, but I have owned over 15 cars, not including the 5 or more company vehicles I have had in my possession over time and non of them had a shimmy like this. Now, maybe you are right and there the Pirelli tires on my truck are way more prone to flat spotting then I am used to, as I have never owned this tire before and I sure wont again

 

[CEN2MENTAL95]

unfortunately MOST tires these days will exhibit this.....nothing wrong, beyond the fact that the compound gets cheaper and the price goes up.

planned obscelesence (sp?) IMO