Can't Tell if Shimmy is Just the Tires

[mr_beaverhousen]

Pardon my inexperience on this as this is my first full fledged off-road capable vehicle but I picked up my Raptor last night and noticed on the drives that there's a shimmy vibration that comes through the steering wheel particularly at slower speeds. As I've never had AT tires or another Raptor to test drive, I can't tell if it's normal. The best way to describe it is that it feels like a giant rock is stuck in the tread and I keep rolling on it.

 

[HORN HIGH ACES]

Pardon my inexperience on this as this is my first full fledged off-road capable vehicle but I picked up my Raptor last night and noticed on the drives that there's a shimmy vibration that comes through the steering wheel particularly at slower speeds. As I've never had AT tires or another Raptor to test drive, I can't tell if it's normal. The best way to describe it is that it feels like a giant rock is stuck in the tread and I keep rolling on it.

Most likely one (or more) of the tires is out of balance. This has been reported as a day 1 issue by a few '17 owners.

 

[kandewinn]

Have dealer check and replace defective tire, or balance.

 

[mr_beaverhousen]

Thank you much. Will make an appointment for next week. Love the truck!

 

[Jeff-Ohio]

Thank you much. Will make an appointment for next week. Love the truck!

Make sure they road force balance the tires. The rear tires that came with my truck were in theory balanced, but when you road force balanced them, they couldn't be properly balanced and had to be replaced.

 

[Jiman]

Pardon my inexperience on this as this is my first full fledged off-road capable vehicle but I picked up my Raptor last night and noticed on the drives that there's a shimmy vibration that comes through the steering wheel particularly at slower speeds. As I've never had AT tires or another Raptor to test drive, I can't tell if it's normal. The best way to describe it is that it feels like a giant rock is stuck in the tread and I keep rolling on it.

Took delivery and drove home 9-1/2 hrs straight yesterday. Could it be that what you're feeling is the lane departure assist kicking in?

Just a thought.

 

[TrapperJ]

I have noticed similar vibes from my Raptor. It seems to be not only speed related but dependent on the road surface too. I've had several Jeeps with big tires but this seems a bit excessive at times. Sometimes it feels worse at slower speeds. I've talked myself out of it being a problem a few times now, but continue to wonder.

If I can convince myself the problem won't be made worse by an incompetent balance I'd have the dealer take a look. I've been around for awhile and have taken new vehicles in minor issues and after the "fix" found the problem to be made worse or fix the problem I had only to create another.

 

[Robtor310]

Have dealer check and replace defective tire, or balance.

Agreed.

If you let it go too long you may get a shimmy shimmy bang bang....

 

[Azholley]

Don't forget to check your tire pressure too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mr_beaverhousen]

Didn't want to keep driving it with the shimmy so just took it to the dealership this morning to drop it off. I rode with the tech who initially thought it was the tread pattern of the AT tires, but once he got up to 40mph acknowledged it wasn't normal. Scheduled for full wheel balance, a little bit of confusion by the tech as he wanted the GM to sign the estimate to approve the work in case it wasn't covered under warranty. I told him I'm pretty sure this would be with only 130 miles on it.

It's definitely not LDW vibration as I didn't have that feature on the first day of my drive.