Is Your Jeep Wrangler TJ Experiencing Vibrations or Death Wobble? READ THIS!

Chris

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I see this topic come up almost on a daily basis, someone is experiencing vibrations from their TJ. It's not an uncommon issue by any means, and when you're doing the things that we do to our vehicles such as lifting them, adding large tires, adjusting driveline angles, etc., you're pretty much setting yourself up to run into vibrations at some point.

I'm going to try and consolidate all the information I can from myself and other members of this forum into one thread. My goal here is to give Jeep Wrangler TJ owners a general overview of what to look for when trying to diagnose vibrations.


Death Wobble vs. Vibrations
True death wobble is completely different than a simple vibration. I promise you that if you've never experienced death wobble before, the first time you do experience it, you will probably piss yourself. At highway speeds, it is both extremely violent, and extremely scary.

Death wobble is not a simple vibration by any means. The entire vehicle will shake around to the point where it feels uncontrollable, and in many cases is. If you are experiencing death wobble, you should not be driving around at all, as you are endangering yourself and others.

A vibration is just that, a vibration. When your tire is improperly balanced or you have a u-joint that is going bad, you'll typically feel vibrations in the vehicle, but they won't feel violent or uncontrollable, just annoying and sometimes loud.

It's hard to put into words, but I promise you that death wobble is entirely different than a vibration, and if you truly have experienced it, you'll know, because it will scare the crap out of you.

Please take note that with true death wobble, once it starts you can't power through it by speeding up (that will only make it more violent). The only way it will go away is by coming to a complete stop.

If you are experiencing something that only comes on at a certain speed, and then goes away at another speed, that is not true death wobble, it is a vibration!


Do Steering Stabilizers Fix Death Wobble or Vibrations?
NO, NO, and NO again! Anyone who tells you this should not be listened to, period. A steering stabilizer has no more to do with fixing death wobble or vibrations than a band-aid does for curing cancer. The only thing a steering stabilizer might do is potentially mask some of the death wobble or vibrations, but it will not fix either, period.

If you don't believe this, remove your steering stabilizer completely and drive without it for a few days. You will notice ZERO effect whatsoever in regards to vibration or death wobble. The only thing a steering stabilizer does is dampen the steering, that's it.

Having said that, a new steering stabilizer (or any sort of double steering stabilizer) will NOT fix your death wobble or vibrations, they are 100% unrelated.


Isolating the Vibration
First and foremost you need to diagnose you vibrations and figure out when they are happening, and under what circumstance.

For instance, do you vibrations happen only on acceleration, but when you let off the gas they go away? Or maybe your vibrations only happen when you apply the brakes, but once you take your foot off the brakes, they go away.

Do your vibrations happen at high speed, low speed, or within a certain speed range? Are your vibrations extremely violent (almost to the point of where it feels you're going to lose control of the vehicle), or are they much more subtle?

When trying to get to the bottom of your vibration, every little detail is important. For instance, if your vibration only happened when you applied the brakes, but went away when you let off the brakes, then your issue would more than likely be warped brake rotors.


Wheel / Tire Balancing & Vibrations (the most common cause of vibrations)
I feel comfortable saying that 9 out of 10 times someone is experiencing a vibration issue, it's almost always due to improper wheel / tire balancing. The reason behind this is simple: Most wheel and tire shops don't have as much experience balancing the huge tires that we run on out vehicles. They're used to balancing the tires that are on the majority of passenger vehicles on the road. Balancing a big tire takes a lot more skill, and therefore a lot of shops will get it wrong (makes sense too, because often times the people working at these places are kids just out of high school, not veterans).

I've seen it more times than I can count. Someone goes and gets new tire installed and assumes that just because they got new tires, the shop must have balanced them correctly. That's not true at all. Sure, if you went to a good shop that has experience balancing larger 4x4 tires (or just got lucky and found a guy who knows what he's doing), then you should have nothing to worry about. But more often than not, this isn't the case.

So, if you're experiencing vibrations (especially after installing new tires), the very first thing I recommend is taking your TJ to a tire shop that specializes in tires for big trucks or 4x4s. Have them check it out and balance the wheels / tires. Like I said, 9 out of 10 times that will resolve the issue.


How to tell the difference between death wobble vs. improperly balanced tires
If you were having true death wobble, you would not be able to accelerate faster through it. What I mean by that is that if you're driving down the highway and you start to experience what you believe is death wobble, then you give it more gas to try and get it to go away, it will not go away if it is real dearth wobble. In fact, if you give it more acceleration and it is indeed real death wobble, it will only make it more violent.

On the other hand, if you give it more acceleration and it goes away (or eases), then you know that what you have is not death wobble at all, it's most likely due to improperly balanced tires, and therefore it's just a vibration.

True death wobble is extremely violent and the last thing you can do is accelerate. The only way to stop death wobble is to come to a near stop.


Vibrations After Lift Install
If your vibrations didn't show up until after you installed a lift, they are most certainly related to the new (and more extreme driveline angles) that come as a result of lifting your TJ. For instance, if you put on a 4" suspension lift and do so without installing a SYE (Slip Yoke Eliminator) or adjusting your pinion angles, then that right there is why you're experiencing vibrations.


Other Vibrations & Things to Check
Here's a good idea of different things to check if you're experiencing vibrations:
  • Track bar mount holes (at both the axle side and the frame side): Check to make sure the bolt holes are not worn so much that the bolt has a lot of lateral play when it's put through the hole.
  • Track bar bolt torque: This is more likely to cause death wobble, but could be mistake for vibrations. Make sure your track bar bolts are torqued down properly. So many people forget to do this!
  • Ball joints: When is the last time you replaced your ball joints? If you've got over 100k on the stock ones, it's time to replace them. See this thread for more info: Which ball joints are the best for my Jeep Wrangler TJ
  • U-joints: Bad u-joints can cause all sorts of noises and even vibrations. It's a good idea to grease your u-joints every so often, and replace them as needed as well. An even better idea is to upgrade to sealed u-joints that don't require greasing, you can read more about that here: What u-joints come on the TJ?
  • Tire balancing: This is the number one cause for vibrations. Take your TJ to a place that specializes in tires for trucks and 4x4s and have them balance the wheels / tires. 9 out of 10 times, this fixes it.
  • Brake rotors: Warped brake rotors can cause mild to severe vibrations in the steering wheel when applying the brake. If the vibration only occurs when you hit the brake, this is most likely your issue.
  • Control arm bushings: Worn control arm bushings have been known to cause vibrations and other issue on our TJs. Visually inspect your bushings. If they look worn, weathered, and cracked, it's time to replace them.
That covers most of what to look for. If I think of something I left out, I'll be sure to add it. If anyone else sees something I missed, please respond to this thread and let me know so that I can update the original post.


Still no luck?
If you're still not having any luck diagnosing your issue, feel free to post a help thread in the TJ General Discussion sub-forum. When you do this, please try to include the following:
  1. Was the vibration always present since you bought the vehicle, or did it just recently occur?
  2. If the vibration recently occurred, is there something you did to possible cause it? Examples of this would be installing a lift, putting in a new driveshaft, etc.
  3. Under what circumstances does the vibration occur? For instance, does it happen between certain speeds? Does it happen only when accelerating or when decelerating as well? The more you can tell us, the better we can help you.
 
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Going to add more to this throughout the day.

I'd appreciate input here from any of you guys that have experience with this. I'd like to add as much content / scenarios / examples as possible to the original post.

My hope here is to create a "vibrations" troubleshooting thread that we can link people to in the future. I'm sure it would be very helpful to new TJ owner.
 
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Good idea...You might want to start with symptoms and link to the different articles...for instance...

Do you feel vibration when you step on the brakes? Goes away when you left off? Read this section on how to fix brakes and replace rotors.

Does the steering wheel shake while driving? Read this article on tire balance.

Etcetera
 
My current vibration dilemma:

I have a relatively light (however still noticeable) vibration starting between 70-75 mph that I can feel in the seat and see some blur in the rear view mirror.

Jeep is a 2004 Rubicon TJ with a 5 speed, 3" Zone suspension lift and I recently did a Rokmen belly skid with a 1" Rokmen BL and a 1" Brown Dog MML.
Also added JKS upper rear control arms to tilt the pinion up and a Tom Woods CV drive shaft.

Front driveshaft is out of the rig so I know that's not the issue and I'm almost positive it's NOT the driveshaft as I had Tom Woods send me a triple checked shaft to make sure the balance wasn't the issue.

Post vibration I've replace the rear shocks with new Fox's, Rokmen rear lower control arms as the stock bushings were worn and a JKS rear track bar and centered the rear axle.

Tires were balanced at the local Discount Tire before installing the belly skid although that's not to say they could still be slightly out of balance.

Vibration is mostly felt under load again at 70-75mph and the transfer case output yoke nut appears to be torqued as there are markings that are still in alignment indicating it was torqued to spec and marked.

I've had the rear shaft out and drove in 4hi and it didn't feel as bad but I don't think I ran it long enough to make a proper assessment for fear of damaging something driving that fast in 4hi. Probably going to try that again this coming weekend but I thought I'd see if anyone else had a suggestion of something I could try? Thanks.
 
Wish I could help more, but rarely run my Rubicon over 65 mph...did you try rotating the tires, just to see if the vibration is different or seemingly from somewhere else?

Definitely possible that the tires are not adequately balanced, though, too many stories of that happening in spite of tire shops saying so...

To others - as OP pointed out, is there an issue of driving 70 -75 in 4H with just the front DS?
 
Then there is my story of developing a drive train vibration after doing a re-gear. Been chasing it for over a year now. I started a thread on this which will have most of the details, so I won't rehash it here. Just thought I'd add it here since it seems the appropriate thread to put it.

https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/re-geared-now-i-have-a-vibration-above-50-mph.4235/

My latest efforts have been measuring run out on rear drive shaft and yokes, and front drive shaft based on a suggestion from @mrblaine.
 
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My current vibration dilemma:

I have a relatively light (however still noticeable) vibration starting between 70-75 mph that I can feel in the seat and see some blur in the rear view mirror.

Jeep is a 2004 Rubicon TJ with a 5 speed, 3" Zone suspension lift and I recently did a Rokmen belly skid with a 1" Rokmen BL and a 1" Brown Dog MML.
Also added JKS upper rear control arms to tilt the pinion up and a Tom Woods CV drive shaft.

Front driveshaft is out of the rig so I know that's not the issue and I'm almost positive it's NOT the driveshaft as I had Tom Woods send me a triple checked shaft to make sure the balance wasn't the issue.

Post vibration I've replace the rear shocks with new Fox's, Rokmen rear lower control arms as the stock bushings were worn and a JKS rear track bar and centered the rear axle.

Tires were balanced at the local Discount Tire before installing the belly skid although that's not to say they could still be slightly out of balance.

Vibration is mostly felt under load again at 70-75mph and the transfer case output yoke nut appears to be torqued as there are markings that are still in alignment indicating it was torqued to spec and marked.

I've had the rear shaft out and drove in 4hi and it didn't feel as bad but I don't think I ran it long enough to make a proper assessment for fear of damaging something driving that fast in 4hi. Probably going to try that again this coming weekend but I thought I'd see if anyone else had a suggestion of something I could try? Thanks.

The first two things that come to mind are the tire balancing (usually the cause), or it's always possible your rear driveshaft / pinion angle is not as spot on as it needs to be. Have you measured the angles of the pinion and driveshaft?
 
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Yeah I believe my pinion angle is pretty spot on. Per Tom Woods' recommendation I took the pinion measurement at the inspection window on either side of the diff cover. I get 18.7 degrees at the pinion per my digital angle finder (had to get a digital one cause the needle one I had didn't feel accurate enough) and 18.6 degrees at the driveshaft. I just adjusted this yesterday to try and get it close to the same as possible. I've had the pinion lower than the driveshaft as much as 3 degrees and didn't feel any difference. Smooth operation until 70-75mph.

IMG_20171120_193348507.jpg


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Yeah I believe my pinion angle is pretty spot on. Per Tom Woods' recommendation I took the pinion measurement at the inspection window on either side of the diff cover. I get 18.7 degrees at the pinion per my digital angle finder (had to get a digital one cause the needle one I had didn't feel accurate enough) and 18.6 degrees at the driveshaft. I just adjusted this yesterday to try and get it close to the same as possible. I've had the pinion lower than the driveshaft as much as 3 degrees and didn't feel any difference. Smooth operation until 70-75mph.

Your pinion angle should be 1-2 degrees lower than the angle of the driveshaft This is because when you accelerate, the pinion will rise up slightly. That could very well be your issue right there.
 
I just put the pinion to 1 degree lower than the driveshaft so we'll see how it does tomorrow. I'm leaning towards tires right now though...or maybe front ball joints? Jeep does have 95k on pretty much everything I haven't replaced yet.
 
I doubt it's the ball joints, though it's worth replacing them if you don't know when (or if) they were replaced last.

Try out the pinion angle a degree lower. I hope that fixes it. Let us know if it doesn't.
 
Putting the pinion 1 degree lower didn't help anything. Going to try a 5 way tire rotation tonight after work to see if that does anything.

What kind of vibration are you experiencing? A tire balance or ball joint/unit bearing vibration feels different than a driveline vibration.
 
I originally thought the vibration was only coming from the bottom of the seat as well as in the center console. And this is where a majority of the vibration still resides, however this morning I put my hand flat on the steering wheel at 75 and could see a little vibration there as well. Also, the rear view mirror vibes enough to make it somewhat blurry.

My pinion angle is good and this is the second shaft from Tom Woods that they made sure to triple check so I'm kind of looking for other non rear driveshaft related things I can try.
 
I originally thought the vibration was only coming from the bottom of the seat as well as in the center console. And this is where a majority of the vibration still resides, however this morning I put my hand flat on the steering wheel at 75 and could see a little vibration there as well. Also, the rear view mirror vibes enough to make it somewhat blurry.

My pinion angle is good and this is the second shaft from Tom Woods that they made sure to triple check so I'm kind of looking for other non rear driveshaft related things I can try.

Have you tried disconnecting the front or rear driveshaft to rule one or the other out as a possible culprit? Sounds like the same vibes I'm getting.