mopargreg
23rd August 2013, 10:05 AM
Hi everyone,
This is a bit long winded, but its been a long process so I wanted to list everything to date. So please read on. I have a 2011 Nissan Patrol wagon. Up until recently my Patrol had the original 17" alloys & original Bridgestone 693 tyres on it. I had been debating for a while about upgrading to some more aggressive tyres. So I ended up getting some new BFG Km2 in a 285/75/16 on 16 x 8 Dynamic steel rims with a -13 offset. This is where all this mess started. The Patrol has 35000 on the clock & most of that on sealed roads or good dirt roads. No tracks to crazy. New 2" lift, steering dampener, adjustable drag link, 2deg caster bushes less than 12 months ago.
The plan was to continue using my 17" alloys for day to day running around & swap to the steels with km2s when we go off road. Thats the plan for now anyway. So running on the 17" alloys the Patrol drove great, least I thought so. From the lot brand new it steered horrible. But after a wheel alignment when I put a 2" lift in & an adjustible drag link it was pretty good.
I put the brand new Km2's on the car with the steel wheels & there was a steering wobble between 80 & 100kms per hour. Also it just drove horrible on the road. Almost like the tyres were trying to grind into the road. Hard to explain but it was horrible. So I returned the patrol to where I bought the tyres from & said the steering has a wobble & to rebalance the wheels. 1 Hour later I got the patrol back & they said it was very minor wheel balance correction. Not really enough to make a difference. I got 6 wheels as I have 2 spares & 3-4 of the wheels had loads of weights all lined up on bot the inside & outside. At the time I was thinking gee thats alot of weights for new wheels & quality tyres. Drove away & similar wobble, maybe marginally better. This particular shop said all it is, is Nissan Patrols dont have central locating wheels meaning are are really hard to get the wheel to sit dead centre of the hub. They tried to tell me you need to put the wheel on, tighten the nuts. The loosen slightly & spin the wheel backwards & retighten. Do this until no wobble. Anyway!
So I figured it must be something in the wheels as I did not get this wobble with the 17' alloys. So I took it to a different tyre place to get the tyres rebalanced. They said the wheels were out of balance, some around the 40-50 gram mark. Drove away, same thing.
So in disgust I removed the km2s & returned to my original alloys. The patrol drove well again & I was happy apart from having over $2ks worth of wheels & tyres in the garage that I dreaded to use.
So I decided to ring around a few truck alignment places & a few other wheel alignment places. I got varying responses about the issue like, all mud tyres shake the wheel, thats just a mud tyre!. Another place said you shouldnt drive high speed on a mud tyre anyway like 80-100km per hour. They are not designed for that. Another few places said it has to be the new wheels as the old wheels did not do that, its all about balancing. Another place said thats Patrols, they all shake no matter what tyre. A few places said you are on your own, cant help you. Another place said its all about a wheel alignment, no need to rebalance.
So I ended up taking the patrol to Proaxle for a on car wheel balance & alignment. Firstly they balanced the tyres. He removed most of the weights & mainly put the weights on the inside. He used very few weights. He balanced all 6 on the front wheels, 3 on each side. It was interesting to watch, seemed very old school. Very manual with flashing lights. Then a wheel balance. They ended up putting 3/4 degree offset kingpin on the passenger side & used my original bearing. Also it had way to much toe so that was adjusted. Drove away & it was a brand new car. With the mud tyres the steering was very light & no longer felt like the tyres were gouging into the road. Very nice to drive so a win there. The Patrol has never drivin so nice on the road. So now the steering wobble. The wobble is very minimal now & only between 90-100km per hour. It is also not all the time. Its like at those speed it cuts in & out. Sometimes it seems to shake & other times not so much. Its maybe more of a shimmy now. The other thing i noticed was you can feel a very slight bounce/shake through the car, like on your right leg on the accelerator & when the steering wheel starts is in line with it. Does that make sense? All in all it has improved massively. I almost feel like its in my head as the minute I think its fixed it starts to wobble.
So I swapped back to my 17" alloys & the steering wobble/shimmy is gone. But I concentrated on it while driving & that slight bounce/shake I mentioned, you feel through the car is still there, only just. But no steering wheel wobble. While changing wheels I noticed that the drivers side wheel bearing was quite loose. It was due for a service the following week so I had the wheel bearing tightened. I also got them to go over the front end with a fine tooth comb. They mentioned that there is evidence that the panhard bushis starting to show signs of wear/cracking. So there was no change after tighteneing the wheel bearing.
So thats where Im at now. Im pulling my hair out with it. Like its much better now compared to when I first put the Km2s on. But still, I was so excited to get the new wheels & tyres but now I kind of dread putting them on. My next step is to replace the panhard rod bushes, but its all starting to add $ up now.
A few questions to put my mind at ease. This is my first set of mud tyres. Do all mud tyres create steering wheel wobble/ shimmy/vibration? Failing that do all KM2s do this?
I mentioned to the fellow at proaxle that I have read onn the patrol forums that people have had good results removing the shims out of the kingpin/swivel hubs. He said you should never remove the shims, never ever. All this is doing is squashing the bearings & WILL lead to premature bearing failure. Apparently the kingpins are preloaded from Nissan & should never be altered. Any thoughts on this??
Has anyone got any advise for me to resolve this issue? I am hoping the new Panhard bushes will solve it but Im not holding my breathe anymore. Im am just shocked it went through 3 sets of hands & I was the one that realised that the wheel bearing was loose. It seems every place has there own beliefs & some being its not fixable. I cant help but think it must be as I see loads of Patrols running around on mud tyres & steel rims. Surely it must be fixable.
Help please!!! Can anyone think of something I may have missed? Thanks for your help
Greg
This is a bit long winded, but its been a long process so I wanted to list everything to date. So please read on. I have a 2011 Nissan Patrol wagon. Up until recently my Patrol had the original 17" alloys & original Bridgestone 693 tyres on it. I had been debating for a while about upgrading to some more aggressive tyres. So I ended up getting some new BFG Km2 in a 285/75/16 on 16 x 8 Dynamic steel rims with a -13 offset. This is where all this mess started. The Patrol has 35000 on the clock & most of that on sealed roads or good dirt roads. No tracks to crazy. New 2" lift, steering dampener, adjustable drag link, 2deg caster bushes less than 12 months ago.
The plan was to continue using my 17" alloys for day to day running around & swap to the steels with km2s when we go off road. Thats the plan for now anyway. So running on the 17" alloys the Patrol drove great, least I thought so. From the lot brand new it steered horrible. But after a wheel alignment when I put a 2" lift in & an adjustible drag link it was pretty good.
I put the brand new Km2's on the car with the steel wheels & there was a steering wobble between 80 & 100kms per hour. Also it just drove horrible on the road. Almost like the tyres were trying to grind into the road. Hard to explain but it was horrible. So I returned the patrol to where I bought the tyres from & said the steering has a wobble & to rebalance the wheels. 1 Hour later I got the patrol back & they said it was very minor wheel balance correction. Not really enough to make a difference. I got 6 wheels as I have 2 spares & 3-4 of the wheels had loads of weights all lined up on bot the inside & outside. At the time I was thinking gee thats alot of weights for new wheels & quality tyres. Drove away & similar wobble, maybe marginally better. This particular shop said all it is, is Nissan Patrols dont have central locating wheels meaning are are really hard to get the wheel to sit dead centre of the hub. They tried to tell me you need to put the wheel on, tighten the nuts. The loosen slightly & spin the wheel backwards & retighten. Do this until no wobble. Anyway!
So I figured it must be something in the wheels as I did not get this wobble with the 17' alloys. So I took it to a different tyre place to get the tyres rebalanced. They said the wheels were out of balance, some around the 40-50 gram mark. Drove away, same thing.
So in disgust I removed the km2s & returned to my original alloys. The patrol drove well again & I was happy apart from having over $2ks worth of wheels & tyres in the garage that I dreaded to use.
So I decided to ring around a few truck alignment places & a few other wheel alignment places. I got varying responses about the issue like, all mud tyres shake the wheel, thats just a mud tyre!. Another place said you shouldnt drive high speed on a mud tyre anyway like 80-100km per hour. They are not designed for that. Another few places said it has to be the new wheels as the old wheels did not do that, its all about balancing. Another place said thats Patrols, they all shake no matter what tyre. A few places said you are on your own, cant help you. Another place said its all about a wheel alignment, no need to rebalance.
So I ended up taking the patrol to Proaxle for a on car wheel balance & alignment. Firstly they balanced the tyres. He removed most of the weights & mainly put the weights on the inside. He used very few weights. He balanced all 6 on the front wheels, 3 on each side. It was interesting to watch, seemed very old school. Very manual with flashing lights. Then a wheel balance. They ended up putting 3/4 degree offset kingpin on the passenger side & used my original bearing. Also it had way to much toe so that was adjusted. Drove away & it was a brand new car. With the mud tyres the steering was very light & no longer felt like the tyres were gouging into the road. Very nice to drive so a win there. The Patrol has never drivin so nice on the road. So now the steering wobble. The wobble is very minimal now & only between 90-100km per hour. It is also not all the time. Its like at those speed it cuts in & out. Sometimes it seems to shake & other times not so much. Its maybe more of a shimmy now. The other thing i noticed was you can feel a very slight bounce/shake through the car, like on your right leg on the accelerator & when the steering wheel starts is in line with it. Does that make sense? All in all it has improved massively. I almost feel like its in my head as the minute I think its fixed it starts to wobble.
So I swapped back to my 17" alloys & the steering wobble/shimmy is gone. But I concentrated on it while driving & that slight bounce/shake I mentioned, you feel through the car is still there, only just. But no steering wheel wobble. While changing wheels I noticed that the drivers side wheel bearing was quite loose. It was due for a service the following week so I had the wheel bearing tightened. I also got them to go over the front end with a fine tooth comb. They mentioned that there is evidence that the panhard bushis starting to show signs of wear/cracking. So there was no change after tighteneing the wheel bearing.
So thats where Im at now. Im pulling my hair out with it. Like its much better now compared to when I first put the Km2s on. But still, I was so excited to get the new wheels & tyres but now I kind of dread putting them on. My next step is to replace the panhard rod bushes, but its all starting to add $ up now.
A few questions to put my mind at ease. This is my first set of mud tyres. Do all mud tyres create steering wheel wobble/ shimmy/vibration? Failing that do all KM2s do this?
I mentioned to the fellow at proaxle that I have read onn the patrol forums that people have had good results removing the shims out of the kingpin/swivel hubs. He said you should never remove the shims, never ever. All this is doing is squashing the bearings & WILL lead to premature bearing failure. Apparently the kingpins are preloaded from Nissan & should never be altered. Any thoughts on this??
Has anyone got any advise for me to resolve this issue? I am hoping the new Panhard bushes will solve it but Im not holding my breathe anymore. Im am just shocked it went through 3 sets of hands & I was the one that realised that the wheel bearing was loose. It seems every place has there own beliefs & some being its not fixable. I cant help but think it must be as I see loads of Patrols running around on mud tyres & steel rims. Surely it must be fixable.
Help please!!! Can anyone think of something I may have missed? Thanks for your help
Greg