Assuming I live to read the responses here, what do you think about this situation? 2000 Jeep Wrangler, only about 84k miles. Drives fine, until I get to 57 mph. At that point, I get a truly violent shaking of the entire car - hard to even hold the wheel - particularly if I happen to hit a bump or crack in the road at that speed. If I go past 57, say, to 60 or more, the shaking abates. If I come down slowly and stop at 57, I get it again. Below that, it stops. WTF could be causing this? And although it sounds like I’m in danger, am I really? Been going on about a couple months.
While it could be just a tire balance issue from your description I doubt it.
I am leaning more toward a serious tire issue or bushing / ball joint issue.
Yes this can be dangerous. A tire failure or broken ball joint could cause a severe accident.
Get it checked by a professional ASAP.
The YJ is similar in concept to the old Willys jeeps. This may (or may not) be useful.
I had that problem. Wheels were badly out of alignment.
THIS!:mad:
It happened to us and my research shows it happens to a lot of Jeeps and Jeep doesn’t have the honor of having a recall. And the feds have decided not to make them.:mad::mad:
It’s one of several reasons why we hate our Wrangler and will probably dump it next year.
FWIW, my link goes to a post I made about the (Willys) Death Wobble.
The death wobble sounds like it’s hitting a resonant frequency. I had that happen in a Maverick with a bad wheel bearing. It was triggered by sound so the exhaust would set it off and the right RPM or a passing truck would set it off. The whole car would shake VIOLENTLY. Changed the bearing and it went away.
Granted unlikely, but an out-of-balance drive shaft would produce those results. As to how a drive shaft would lose its balance, a welded-on balancing weight could have come loose. Just a thought.
It’s been tire balance the dozen or so times I’ve came across it on TJs, but it’s not unheard of it being something else.
That would be the logical starting point starting with a visual inspection of each tire to look for damage.
If every thing was well and your truck just started the “Death Shake”, it is likely you need a new steering damper.
Wait… Jeep Wranglers will go 57?
I had a loose tie rod end on my Honda Civic many years ago, but the result was a wobble that became noticeable at about 65mph and go progressively worse with speed. As time went on it got progressively worse until it became annoying at 55mph before I finally go it fixed.
The giveaway IIRC was the ability to grab the tire and move one of the front wheels back and forth a fraction (side to side horizontal like steering) of an inch while not moving the steering wheel.
Unless you had a weight fall off a tire I doubt balance is the issue. For the most part tires don’t go out of balance much during their life.
With that said balance is the place to start as a belt separation or other signs of impending tire failure will be obvious once the tire is mounted on the balancer.
A quick first test is to have the tires rotated and balanced. If the problem goes away, hooray. But, don’t bet on it.
If that didn’t fix it, and you’re the type who actually takes their Jeep out for some off-road fun, get underneath and check all the drive shafts, axles, hubs, etc. for clumps of mud or other stuff that isn’t clean metal. (I grew up in Chicago and we’d often get a similar shimmy in winter thanks to ice/snow buildup.)
It’s just a good place to start, and with my jeep and others I’ve worked on, that has always been the problem, but I’ve heard of it being various other things that I think have all been mentioned.
Rick, the tires don’t have to go out of balance in the classical sense to resonate. Once that happens it’s a cascading event. It will go from a small vibration to the entire car massively shaking in a few seconds. Kind of like feedback from a microphone. They call this flutterin the aviation business and it will tear the part off if left unchecked. As I said before this happened to me once with a bearing. It felt like all 4 wheels had their lug nuts backed off an inch. It was that bad. But I could tell it originated from the front left wheel and the tire was balanced.
If that’s what the op is describing then I would be looking at the rolling stock which is the wheels, bearings, and drive shaft. If it’s just something wobbling badly then you could supply a better list than I. ball joints, tie rod end etc…