So I took the advice from many on here and promptly purchased a Bilstein 5100 stab (p/n 24-196284). "Oh sweet, something that should make a dramatic difference in the steering wheel shake and slop from bumps," I thought.

No such luck. Been on for about 1500-2000 miles now and it sucks. As soon as I put it on in fact, I noticed it seemed to be even looser than the factory stab!! With the bilstein, steering for corners takes less effort and I've got ALL kinds of slop while driving. And when I say driving I mean in a straight line, over bumps spanning the width of the truck, bumps where just one wheel travels, holes, dips, etc. Everything. The steering wheel will actually oscillate probably 2-4" back and forth!! Awful. Does this seem right?? Did I get a bad shock?

The truck has 20x9 +18mm offset wheels on it and 275/60/R20 tires, which is nothing outrageous or too far away from factory size. Some say its the wheels/tires but I have trouble believing that, especially when the Ford stabilizer seemed to handle it better than this "upgrade"

 

The wheels and tires can do it, I had a 97 F150 4" lift with stock wheels and tires, slightest bump would put it into death wobble; all the front end alignment shops could do nothing to help so on a gamble swapped out tires and wheels 8.5" wide wheels and 33" tires no more wobble, put on many miles with it. I traded it in on another truck put the stock wheels & tires back on, death wobble was back. Have you tried varying the air pressure on the fronts?

 

No i haven't tried pressure up front, but they are running what's recommended and equal between the two.

I still have trouble with the wheel argument, you say you went from a factory set up (probably pizza cutters?) to a larger wheel/tire and it got better?? Isn't it usually the other way around? Mine are 9" wide and equivalent of 33" as well

 

I'm not sure if you have the same problem I did or not but on the highway cement seems the wheel would wobble bad. This was after I installed after market wheels and 35in tires. This wobble only happens on the cement hwy in my area, asphalt is fine.

I also added the 5100 and it helped about 30% but I still wasn't happy so I bought a BDS dual setup and it fixed about 80% and I'm now happy. It was expensive but worth it to me, hope this helps!

 

My truck got a little better after replacing the stabilizer with the billstein. It still wobbled regularly though. I changed the tires and aligned it and it vanished.

 

IMHO, the steering dampener is present on these trucks to reduce NVH. It was not designed to dampen oscillations due to worn out parts, poor alignment, geometry issues, or tire problems.

OP, Since your truck is relatively new and doesn't have giant tires, there should be no oscillations in the steering wheel with either dampener. Something is wrong.

What is the caster value?

 

After reading this I believe I had the same experienced with the Bilstien stabilizer. I also changed springs, shocks, dampener and tires so had no idea what from exactly. The steering effort would go to zero when the tire hit a bump and lowered contact pressure for a fraction of a second. Guess it may also be due to the stabilizer..... I change shocks (stiffer) and that helped as they keep the tires on the ground better as they are a better match to the progressive rate spring.

 

The alignment shop told me I would amplify the problem going from 950/70/15s to the 1250/70/15s, this was on a F150 but it reacted the opposite, go figure

The F450 I just got rid of had lousy handling if I put over 85psi in the fronts, it was all over the road. That's what has happened to me.

 

What year of truck do you have?

My 2015 had a slight shimmy all the time.

I am working on a new coarse of action now.

 

2014 F250. Non-snow plow, non-camper package, CCLB if that matters at all..

 

Well I haven't had an alignment or had a shop even look at it because how can parts be worn out/poorly aligned after only 35k miles?! I sincerely hope they aren't, and they d**n well shouldn't be...but anything is possible. I plan to put new wheels and tires on along with carli 2.5" coils. After that I'll have alignment looked at to see what they say then. Wouldn't mind seeing what it is now, but I'm not paying for two alignments...

Agreed, but when you say you hit a bump and effort goes to zero, that's almost all the time for me, regardless of bumps or not. I hate to spend $75 on something that won't work and throw it in the trash to buy a different one, or worse yet put the stock one back on *gasp!!* Shocks have also been changed on mine, 5100 series as well.

 

I just drove our fire depts F550 this past weekend and it rode like a dream! Straight as an arrow and no steering wobbles or excessive vibes or rough ride...very frustrating!!

 

Funny, I have the Bilstein 5100 too and when I first got it I loved it, but now I feel like it's failing. Maybe it is, maybe it's just me adjusting to it and becoming more picky, but I will probably change to a dual setup in the future. I can't speak for whether or not you got a bad part, but when I first put it on it did make a noticeable difference from stock and from a Rancho RS5000.

 

i use the Carli / Bilstein 7100 Steering Stabilizer,

 

I tried the Rancho 9000 shocks and noticed my trucks steering shake started getting really bad and that's when I started to realize my new shocks were toast. I put back on the Motorcraft branded Rancho shocks and now my steering is very stable like it supposed to be.