Death Wobble

[Grumpy]

Enough of this, and some cull will try to make the things the next Corvair...

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=8547355

[commando14]

Cry me a river... they should have bought a Compass

[Grumpy]

I waass thinking a Liberty

[TJDave]

Not isolated to Jeeps, although the article would have you believe.....

But, it's ABC news. It's how they roll.

[tobyw]

Interesting video clip... For the record, I don't see any true death wobble in any of those vehicles shown, but the shimmy they all exhibit is in fact a common problem. True death wobble will jerk the wheel out of your hand and have you changing lanes, not just make you spill your latte' or pull your cell phone away from your ear...

Sadly, this is a legit issue that affects bone stock vehicles, and while I'm not one to advocate someone else paying to fix my problem, there is some culpability here on the part of the OEM.

[DefiantSD]

ive actually experienced this before in my dads 2006 wrangler TJ, but after tinkering around with the whole front end i linked the problem to his shitty les schwab tires and rims, after sending it back to les schwab to get the rims and tired reballanced it stopped the problem for a few months. he takes it back in regularly to get them ballenced untill he can afford to get new rims and tires.

[Wrench]

The problem is in their 4-link suspension design and factory recommended caster settings. And as soon as you add larger than stock tires, the problem amplifies.

My Cherokee used to suffer from this condition pretty bad. Now it is completely cured.

[SPR]

ive actually experienced this before in my dads 2006 wrangler TJ, but after tinkering around with the whole front end i linked the problem to his shitty les schwab tires and rims....

My sister's TJ suffered from the same thing. every time she hit a man-hole cover, it got scarey. Initially I cured it by weighting down the back end of the Jeep with a grocery-getter and firewood. She found a better fix by getting rid of the Les Schawab tires and putting on a set of Coopers ATs.

[Lud]

New adjustable control arms fixed my Jeeps caster angle which in turn fixed my wobble in the front end. Turns out the bushing in the front stock control arms were worn too. This was a well-known problem even on the stock TJ's. My TJ never did it stock, just self inflicted with the lift and stock length arms.

I am surprised its happening on JK's as well as I would think they would have gone with beefier track bars and links to the front end and looked at their caster angle to address it.

That being said these people should get someone more competent to look at their jeeps than the dealer or better yet just sell me one of their 4 door JK's for like 5 grand.

[SquirrelCrusher]

I like how Jeep is the only company thrown under the bus on this issue.

[White trash]

I like how Jeep is the only company thrown under the bus on this issue.

It's not the only company that has this issue but it is one of the few that do and in far greater percentage. When you have bad geometry mixed with big soft bushings attached to weak flexible sheetmetal links it happens.

I've had wicked wobble on my yota due to worn bushings mixed with bad geometry and my ferd has it now due to worn bushings and 37's.

[Wrench]

I like how Jeep is the only company thrown under the bus on this issue.

It's not the only company that has this issue but it is one of the few that do and in far greater percentage. When you have bad geometry mixed with big soft bushings attached to weak flexible sheetmetal links it happens.

I've had wicked wobble on my yota due to worn bushings mixed with bad geometry and my ferd has it now due to worn bushings and 37's.

Trashy totally hit the nail on the head, there. But I guess that is what makes the Jeeps work and ride so well off-road even when bone stock.