Brother just rotated his tires(4, crossed the front to the back, the back came straight up) and now his steering wheel shimmies at 45 - 50 mph. He's running BFG AT KO's. We're thinking tire balance or alignment ??
The tires barely have 8K on them. What would be his first step, tire balance? I did a search first and saw the steering dampener issue, truck has 64K miles on it.

thanks

 

Have the tires balanced and the vibration should go away.

 

Definitely balance the tires. Could also be uneven tire wear. I doubt that the alignment would be affected by simply rotating the tires.

 

Need to get them balanced. Happened with my POS BFGs too.

 

Will Do.....

Zaairman, love the "beer is good and people are crazy" - spent 33 of my best years in West Philly fighting fires and I know for a FACT peeps are CRAZY!

Nothing surprises me anymore, NOTHING

 

You shouldn't cross rotate - keep the direction of rotation the same. Rotate front/rear same side.

First step is undo the cross.

 

This is why I mentioned uneven wear. I crossed mine on a previous truck, and it caused some serious tire squirm because of the uneven wear across the tires. Keeping the tires rotating in the same direction seems to negate that effect. Crossing them changes the rotational direction, and any cupping or feathering becomes more noticeable.

 

If the KO's are unidirectional tires, you can actually damage them by reversing the direction. Even if they are not, I've seen tires start to break belts when the direction is reversed.

 

Have had 2 F150's, an 02' and 08'.....have had the BFG AT KO on both and used the 5 tire rotation on both trucks.....

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=43
(scroll down for 5 tire rotation)

Also on the 08' I went with load range E tires and run btwn 60 + 65 psi all around with great results, mpg etc.(max pressure 80 lbs on the E tires)

I rotate every 5K, just easy to remember for me and we have a 3 ton floor jack, compressor, etc. to do our own tires so we can inspect them when we do.
As in the diagram the right front goes to the left rear and between both trucks I've never had a problem with balancing with the BFG's.

Now I admit I drive the trucks like they have to last me awhile but I can't say enough about the BFG's.....we get enough snow here in Philly and we also surf fish where we air down to travel on the sand and the tires do just fine.....JMHO