Death Wobble Q&A: "Do aftermarket wheels and tires cause Death Wobble?"

Transcript:
Hey guys Kevin from KevinsOffroad.com
here we've gotten a few question over the
years as to how death wobble began on
their vehicles after swapping out either
wheels or tires or both and it's kind of
a kind of a difficult concepts but
basically the factory wheels are inset
inside of where the ball joint rotates
so in other words it's called a high
offset wheel and basically the rubber
and the rolling mass of the tire sits
way inboard on the inside of your ball
joints now most aftermarket wheels and tires
well first off in order to run a wider
tire you'd want a wider wheel a wider
wheel is gonna stick further outboard of
your fender area and then the
aftermarket wheels typically are not as
backset as the factory wheels would be
so what that means is that everything
gets pushed towards the outboard side of
the axle there and then you've got a lot
of rotational mass out at the outer edge
so when you do hit a bump or an impurity
in the pavement or a seam or what-have-you
you've got a lot more leverage on all of
your steering components because of that
rotational mass being outboard of where
the ball joint is at it's basically like
a really long lever that all it has to
move is just a little bit in order to
offset the death wobble if you've got
loose componentry and such under there
now we wrote a book on how to cure death
wobble it's available here on our
website if you search for book you
should be able to find it
if you're struggling with death wobble
then you know that's probably a good
place to start there's a lot of great
information in there but if you can put
your factory wheels and tires back on
and your death wobble situation goes
away what that tells me is that well it
tells me two things first off obviously
you've created a longer lever by putting
those bigger tires and wheels on there
which needs to be offset by tightening
up all of your steering components...
basically your track bar needs to be super
super beefy I would say inch and a half and up
for a minimum of inch and a half outside
diameter on your track bar you're
probably going to need some super
durometer bushings in that track bar
itself you're gonna want to make sure
that your toe in setting is closer to
zero than the factory setting is you're
gonna want to make sure your caster is
set properly and we go through all the
stuff in the book there's I don't know
whatever 50 different things that could
potentially cause death wobble by being
loose so you're gonna have to go through
each one of those components
unfortunately but the good news is that
death wobble is in I'd say 99% of the
cases curable we sell death wobble cure
kits which include a whole bunch of
brand new components that you replace
all at one time so you're not constantly
trying to chase down what happened to be
loose that week and then once you
replace it you find out that something
else wore out in the process which is a
huge pain in the butt you've got to keep
tearing the Jeep apart and it's it's a
pain so replacing all those components
at once oftentimes makes sense for
people so anyway death wobble is a very
very very very very big con construct
and concept that it's not easy to do in
a couple minute long video here
obviously but I did want to give you the
concept at least that replacing your
tires and wheels with aftermarket tires
and wheels can indeed trigger death
wobble namely just because your steering
components have quite a bit of wear on
them over the years and then they were
not designed for that particular wheel
and tire combo from the factory anyway
so you're gonna have to upgrade all the
other stuff too so anyway that's enough
for me it's four minutes here at least
on this video for more videos like this
www.kevinsoffroad.com/blog
hopefully that answered your question
and hope you have a fantastic day thank
you very much for your business...
I'm super grateful for you
Older Post
Newer Post

1 comment

  • Hey great read .i have a patrol and i bet everthing you said relates to them too.ive told people this for years ..the wheel wannts to osilate like a cone almost.👍

    Spud Murphy

Leave a comment

Close (esc)

Age verification

By clicking enter you are verifying that you are old enough to consume alcohol.

Search

Shopping Cart

Your cart is currently empty.
Shop now