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Im interested in how your trucks felt leading up to the DW events. I have a '19 250 with 20s and snow plow prep. I have 6600 miles so far and no DW. BUT... I do get a good amount of bump steer over minor road irregularities. And I have on 3 occasions hit kind of bigger bumps... one was a 2 inch depressed man hole that I could not miss and the other was a bunch of potholes. The last is a dip on my way to work that is a longitudinal depression across the lane maybe 2 inches deep by 6 or 8 wide. In each of these first 2 incidents the truck went violently sideways over the bumps. The one on the way to work I can hit every day and play with it for reference... although it does not make the truck jump sideways it bump steers pretty hard to the left. Each of the other times it went left as well although I cant say which tire hit the potholes the manhole was the left side.... I am noticing now that all the bump steer feed back is pulling left.
Truck tracks straight. Truck runs straight with hands off the wheel even under braking. Truck rides really nice but for what I think is excessive bump steer always to the left.
So I read all these DW threads with great interest to see what others were feeling before the DW events took place because Im driving in anticipation of having it happen at any time...
In my case the death wobble had no indications or warnings . To me that's the biggest issue I had because it's unexpected . The first attempt at fixing mine was the stabilizer , I put the Fox stabilizer on after that and the DW reoccurred . I took it back to the dealership and they installed camber bushings , realigned and balanced and rotated the tires . I haven't had a problem since . I'm at 17k .
No wobble but bump steer regularly., lots of pot holes and rail tracks around here. Stock 17 with 18 inch tires. Truck is almost 3 years old. I just put up with it because I know the dealership won't do anything unless its continuous after a bump, but its not. I try not to hit any holes and slow down at the tracks just to minimize this experience. its definitely frustrating when the bump steer occurs. it always corrects itself right after.
I had very severe vibration..rear end bounce..Take my advice ...get rid of the OEM tires ASAP.. Replaced tires @1000 Miles ............No severe anything .........9000 Miles Later
Always replace the shipping tires. That's my rule.
Bump steer is due to the SFA, no fix for that though a bad steering stabilizer can make it worse. On one of the other 'death wobble' threads, someone questioned if a frame that was not true could be the cause in some of these cases in new low mileage trucks. That got me thinking if you had a frame that was shifted a bit like a parallelogram, with one side rail slightly ahead of the other, it could result in a front axle (and rear) skewed to one side. No question that would be compensated for when the truck was aligned at the factory. However, I question if a truck had that condition and it was compensated for (and went down the road straight), it might still cause a front axle side thrust. If a truck with that condition and hit a road irregularity that pushed the front axle to the side opposite of the thrust, could it set up the 'death wobble' oscillation? It would be interesting to take a new truck with the 'death wobble' condition and measure it on a frame rack. Just a wild guess on my part.
Fact is 'death wobble' is caused by a rapid side to side oscillation of the front axle, and a 3 link radius arm SFA suspension is prone to this condition. Leaf spring SFA's are much less prone because the springs themselves act as very ridged control arms, and IFS simply does not have this problem. Any front suspension if in poor enough condition can have a shimmy, but this is not the same problem as 'death wobble'.
DW can be controlled if all parameters are met. Besides the so-so track bar, it's also possible the boxed frames on these trucks are flexing.
On dump trucks we run steerable drop axles. They steer themselves, no steering boxes, no shocks to control up and down bounce, no track bar, just lots of caster and a coil over shock mounted at each tie rod end. I have ran these things with the rubber bushings worn out, king pins word out, not tight enough wheel bearings, all with no DW. The only times I have had DW is when one of the coil over shocks goes bad, and I can tell you crossing a bridge expansion seam at 70 mph in a loaded truck, DW is severe. At least I can release the air and lift the axle to stop it. I've seen trucks in front of me look like they were leaving the road, plus leaving all kinds of black marks as they tried to slow and get off the road.
If an axle that has no major steering components can run for hundreds of thousands of miles without DW, surely someone can design a pickup front end that won't do it.
Has anyone with death wobble had it successfully fixed? My 17 has 25,000 miles on it and I had it in for death wobble like 1,000 miles ago and they replaced the steering stabilizer as per the TSB, but on Saturday I hit an expansion joint on the freeway and it started violently oscillating worse than it ever has in the past. I had to slow down to 30 mph in the middle of the freeway to get it to stop hopping all over the place. My passenger thought I had blown multiple tires and was terrified. It is truly unsafe and makes me nervous taking my family in the truck at all. Not a fan of owning a truck I don't feel safe driving.
I am going to take it to another dealer and have them inspect and go over the TSB, there is a step regarding the alignment that the TSB says not to do if you replace the stabilizer that the last dealer didn't do but my truck is very much still not fixed.
On a side note does anyone is the SLC area have a dealer/service writer they have good luck with? I have tried several dealers and they have all been a joke so far.
If you are still having DW and the SS has been replaced then my next step would be the Track Bar bushings may be worn.
NOTE any work done to DW you MUST first ensure that Toe, Caster and tires are inflated to the proper pressure, inspect for a leaking shock and test for a 'soft' shock which can cause it DW. At 25k mi inspect for bad ball joints.
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