The Nissan Path

Today was the day! I got a nice set of General Grabber ATs 285/75/16s put on! Wow, does it make a difference in ride and looks!! Ive got a bit of a rub when I crank the wheel to the left, but a quick review of the melt mod should take care of that. I got em for a steal at $205 mounted and balanced each. SO glad I took everyones advice and went with the 285s. The guy at the tire shop was a little skeptical about putting on such a large size, but after everyones posts with their experience with the size, I knew it was possible. I felt very knowledgeable walking in there.

This forum is awesome!!

Nice, welcome to the club! Any pictures?

PICS!!




Before and after shot!

they look good. i kinda wish i would have gone with this size.

so a few days into having these tires, I was on the highway and woah... holy shakes. Shaking the whole front of the truck like I've never experienced before. The wheel was shaking side to side as well, making it difficult to hold on to.

I took it back to the tire shop, and they adjusted the balance, said that he thinks its likely the toe in adjustment is too far in for the bigger tires, making the tires essentially fighting for direction causing the shake. Makes sense to me. I was unable to make an appt where I purchased the tires because they were booked solid till next week... and I travel 80 miles round trip to work (95% highway) so I took it to a shop near where I work. I explained the situation, the toe being too far in, and the guy looked at me like I have 10 heads. He says in all his years working in tires that he's never heard of an alignment issue being the cause of shaking. I called while the truck was on the machine, and he did say that the alignment was totally out of wack, but was adamant that he doesnt think this is causing the shake.

Who is right??

Welp....i've never seen a vibration issue like that end up to be alignment. MAYBE some suspension parts...but clearly this is a tire issue. It's either the balance or you've got a tire (or tires) "out of round". The out-of-round issue is not as UNcommon as you'd think. I had a full set of them once and you could look at the tire on the balance machine and it looked like it was moving in an "S" pattern while rolling. A friend with a tire shop says it happens fairly often too. But make sure they're road-force balancing the tires as well. If it's just a single out-of-round tire that happens to be on the front....a quick rotation will fix the symptom.

Its most likely a tire issue. aggressive tires can be difficult to balance. i know when i had my 295s installed. first time i drove on the highway i got massive wheel shake. took it back to the shop i bought the tires from and they said that the tires can be hard to balance. they also said tha t they didnt want to put weights on the face of the wheel. i told them it was fine. they rebalanced which took a lot of weight, and added weights on the face of the wheel and now im fine. i know my tires are bigger and more aggressive but even mine could be balanced. another option is putting bb's in the tire and then reinflating the wheel. ive seen it done for big off road tires.

Talk to Oly. He just had a similar issue and swapped the front with the rear. It stopped the shaking and finally took the bad tires back to the shop to be swapped out.

thanks for all your advice guys. i really appreciate it.

i just picked up my truck. according to the garage it needs a new lower ball joint and a left rear control arm bushing before the alignment can be done. awesome. but the garage said that the alignment def was all out of wack.

this truck has cost me a fortune... i may as well have paid for a brand new one... but def NOT an R52

the r52s arent bad but they are crossovers. i need to get new lower front control arms to get my alignment completely back in shape.

I've always been impressed with my R51 because I've never had a steering vibration to speak of. Granted my tire guy always does a good job, but it's not uncommon to need to rebalance tires along the way. My wifes MDX is VERY picky about tire balance and still certain roads still will shake the steering slightly. While it seems some of the early models have some quirks, overall this thing is built quite well. I just had all my suspension checked out as I'm approaching 100k and everything is good, which is surprising given how often I'm off-road or on gravel roads.