Den01
It was good to hear the results of trying the tailgate vibration test on several other trucks. At least this is common on trucks and not a major concern for the new F150. Thanks for the update..

 

Has anyone else noticed a difference in shock resonance after installing a tonneau cover? This is hard for me to nail down, because I had not noticed the rebound this thread talks about, but after installing the A.R.E. fiberglass tonneau cover, I immediately noticed a difference in ride. I'm not sure if it's just because I added about 100 pounds to the bed or if closing the bed made the change.

I really can't say whether it's better than the original ride--only that it's different. For those of you with the rebound issue, perhaps it would be better.

S/Cab 4x4 Lariat

 

I would be very curious to see someone try the counterwight/ dampening test with a full tank of gas and then again with a 1/4 tank and see if there is a noticible difference. The liquid load weight difference should at least have some effect, as the weight difference could be 150lbs on a 30 gallon tank of gas. If they are mounted to the frame the same way, it may be a way of testing the theory without mounting the 50lb weight. Just a thought.

 

The vibration dampener is not just 25 lbs of weight hanging there. Its mounted inside a rubber housing. The "thenetguy" can tell you all about it.

 

I don't really feel the vibration everyone is talking about in my 4x4 Lariat SCab, but I do feel bumps in the road. This IS a truck, not a Lincoln. When I get on a newly paved road, the truck is smooth as silk. When it's on a crappy road, it's not. I DO think it sucks that you pay that much money for a truck and they throw a "fix" at you like a weight damper. I'm surprised you don't hear more about this in the media. All you hear is how smooth the ride is. I never knew about a vibration problem until I found this forum. Weird, huh? The media loves to burst a company's bubble. I just wonder what the percentage is of trucks that have the vibration vs. no vibration. Maybe it's a really a small amount of the trucks that do and that's why the media isn't grabbing onto this?

 

Ford obviously knows they have a serious problem, as they came out with a band-aid very quickly. I just don't think the band-aid is going to completely fix the boo boo.

 

Good news is, Ford didn't think of it. A few (more than 5) years or so ago, MBZ was trying to reduce the vibration in their convertibles. The solution? Attach a rubber "donut" to the front fender. No more vibrations.

Hopefully, they will solve this the same way the Benz people did and try different configurations.

I thought that the convert mustangs in 95 had these. I might be wrong.

 

Maybe this has already been posted, but here is an excerpt I found online from a guy with a vibration problem and how he found a shop with a GSP-9700? See the link below for info on this "GSP-9700". Hope the link and the info helps you guys.

http://209.176.154.132/

Excerpt:

I have a Ford F-150 that had a vibration problem since new. I took it back to the dealer and had them rebalance it with no change in the vibration. I then took it to a friends shop, that is one of the better shops in the area, He has a GSP-9700 and had them do their thing.

The initial checks showed that I had two wheel/tire assemblies that had real high road force variations. One was over 80 pounds and one was 60 pounds. The tire with the 80 pound reading was found to be defective and had to be replaced. After the work up all the tires now range from between 25 and 35 pound of force variations. This greatly improved the ride of the truck to a point it was acceptable. It is not perfect. The interesting thing was the operator told me that I would still be able to feel a slight vibration in the truck as anything over the 15-20 pound range can be felt. He told me this before the tires where remounted on the truck. He was right.

The only way to make it perfect is to put better tires on the truck. It came stock with Goodyear Wranglers and I hate them. I cannot wait for them to wear out so I can replace them with the Michelin LTX. He said that the LTX is consistently the best truck tire they have seen with the normal force variations at a consistent glass smooth 6 pounds.

The Michelin tires on my Maxima finally wore out after over 80,000 miles of use and had them replaced with, of course new Michelins. On the way home from the tire store I noticed a vibration in the car that has never been there. I took it back to the tire shop and had them rebalanced. Not much of a change.

I then took it to my friends shop and had them balanced on his GSP-9700 and the car was back to glass smooth.

 

GSP-9700

http://128.242.141.111

 

Hey fordguy61mi,

It's not just a rebaling problem. I went through 3 sets of good tires which were balanced on the same machine. Look at my pics and you'll see Ford actually has a vibration kit for just one of the 3 known vibration problems. I started with the "tire theory" and it took me down the wrong road so to speak. I wasted 2 months when all I needed was the rear end oil changed, vibration dampener installed, and probably new clutch packings and possible driveline balancing. Believe me! I know more about tires than I ever wanted to and it's not the tires. Thanks for the info and I totally agree that a person should "start" with the tires first to make sure. This machine does do a better job as well.