All about death wobble

I keep hearing about this but no idea what the subject is about apart from wobble at speed. Does it come on following something like a lift or fitting extreme tyres? Can it be induced and particular way. Can it just come from nowhere. How severe is it, I mean like wheel balancing out or is it like a dangerous vibration.
I read a bit about Suzuki not expecting the load presented by extreme wheels in the design and them trying to cure it with shims. Don;t King Pind have shims for pre-loads anyway?
So can someone who has experienced of it fill me in please. Or point me to an article that gives a good account with anecdotal support?
Thanks in advance.

Death wobble is often the outcome of fitting bigger chunkier tyres. Not because of the increased friction caused but because of the change in weight in the tyres. Alloys can also cause death wobble if they aren't 'balanced' correctly. My wobble is bad but not uncontrollable, but you shouldn't put up with it. I took my standard wheels off, fitted chunky tires, I then got death wobble, I went back to road tyres and got the wobble! But this is because I didn't put each wheel back to its existing corner of vehicle. Hope this helps

Thanks.

Do some Jimnys never get it or can any suddenly get it?

Does it happen at a very certain speed. I had some Fords centuries ago and wheel wobble was almost an accepted attribute.

I have 215.70.15 tyres on 7x15 steel rims so there is a fair bit of offset and extra weight but the tyres are not chunky as I wanted a road tyre rather than aggressive mudplugging ones.

Are the hubs much the same as the SJs as I never heard of this on those!

I suppose if Suzuki built the vehicle as a package then they wouldn't be interested in cars that have been modified.

If it comes on do we go back to standard wheels ( I sold mine ) or what.

And this plan, I take it it is top secret Martin?

For me it happens past 40mph 50 mph is unbearable, and yes it can happen to any car, but it doesn't just happen, you have to play around with the wheels in some way to trigger it.

Teds Jimny wrote: For me it happens past 40mph 50 mph is unbearable, and yes it can happen to any car, but it doesn't just happen, you have to play around with the wheels in some way to trigger it.

And can you 'undo' the playing around?

mlines wrote: Death Wobble is easy identify, its not just a little shake, its when it shakes so bad you get white knuckles gripping the steering wheel and the passengers all shout "we are going to die"

There is no single cause and not necessarily a quick fix.

Suzuki designed the Jimny to be a tolerance fit, so no shims or preload were in the design.

Suzuki do not seem to recognise the issue although Suzuki Australia did produce shims.

However I have a plan........

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Sounds like a world suzuki take over lol

I'm a new owner of a 2000 Jimny and when I bought it it had no Death Wobble. Tbh I should have researched this site better cos I had to get new manual hubs for it (the vacuum pipes weren't even there) and one side kingpin bearings. After changing these items I got the dreaded Death Wobble. It was depressing to think I'd not only bought a Lemon, spent good money on it, then made it worse. I'd only had one wheel off so the next day I decided to remove the wheel and rotate it one nut at a time in the hope it would cure it.
I felt like an idiot when I realised I had fitted the wheel nuts the wrong way round. I'd done the work on my driveway and finished in the dark. Didn't notice that the wheel nuts had a chamfer on them.
When I re fitted the wheel nuts with the chamfer towards the wheel the Wobble had gone. I know I'm an a-hole for the oversight, but , I was wondering if others have done the same and spent a fortune replacing bits they don't need.



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Having posted just a few weeks ago that i run re-moulds with wheel spacers on alloys and no issue in the last week I have gained an issue between 35-40...now starting to extend to 45mph.
nothing changed on the car so heading to the local friendly balancing shop at the weekend for hopefully a quick fix...fingers crossed.

I'm running 235/75/15 special track on modulars and drive at 60 everywhere and have no wobble problems at all, all I have is play in the steering box so it wanders a little.

I'm running offset rims and death wobble appeared all of a sudden one day, had a look underneath and noticed grease around the off side hub, changed the king pin bearings and seal on that side, wobble gone