I currently have 22" wheels on my 04 Super Crew. I have just recently discovered the ever popular "chatter" in the steering wheel. The strange thing is that I have had these wheels since the truck was new and just replaced the tires with the same make as I had before. I just recently noticed the chatter and was puzzled due to the fact that the old 22" tires never had a problem. They have been road forced and are perfectly balanced. I did some research and heard through the grapevine that Ford has discovered a preload issue with the gearing in the rack & pinion. This was discovered in 2006 when the 06 came with factory 20's. Has anyone else heard this? My dealership thinks I'm crazy! But this asctually makes sense!!

 

I would say with certainty that it's your new tires. If you didn't have the problem before, and you do now, it's a balancing problem. I have witnessed a machine saying tires were perfectly balanced, yet there were problems. Unfortunately, short of the old fashioned way with weights on the inside and outside of the wheel, it's hard to get things perfect with the sticky weights.

 

That's what I thought at first. I even got the two front tires exchanged for new ones thinking that would fix the problem. No luck! From what I understand - preloading the rack & pinion gears a little more would take out any potential "play" in the steering. I guess I'm just hoping someone will chime in and confirm or dis-credit this idea.