Death Wobbles @13,000km

[dom83]

mate my JKUR is running the same lift and stock tyres. I assume that the fact you have a second set of tyres for off-road use that you actually take the JK off-road.

I would say the ball joints are gone as mine also only lasted about 15,000.

i still have them in but have a set of synergy ones waiting to be installed. The stock ones don't last too long if you use it off-road.

Not like these things are built to go bush or anything.

[Fruju]

There have been a few of us on here with ball joints failing with less than 20k on the clock.
Ball joints or loose trackbar are usually the main culprits, but as Paul said tyres can sometimes trigger it.
See your dealer first as they fitted your lift. I couldn't be bothered dealing with mine as I wanted to keep wheeling, so I changed them myself.

[xjdavid]

Are the bolt holes in the trac bar bracket a perfect fit for the bolts.

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2

[Banshee]

Question about what is happening now; you said rail lines at 80k cause wobble.

Does it settle after a few seconds, or do you have to almost stop to stop them? Low caster from the lift can cause light steering that will cause a shimmy when you hit a bump even with no DW issues. I had this until I tried some adjustable lower control arms, then switched to AEV correction brackets. Both fixed that issue, but the brackets give a smoother ride due to the arm angles being better. This shimmy generally settles soon after it starts, but a true death wobble often requires you too almost stop to end it.

The OEM tyres are prone to going out of round, as well. I had mine checked the last time I had them balanced as I was getting vibration, particularly at certain speeds (~90-100). 4 out of 5 of the OEM GSAs had places on the tyre that were visibly 'higher' as it spun on the balancer.

[JKlamb]

The other place to check is the ball joints on the drag link and track rod, the ball joints in them shag out as well. I had to have the drag link replaced at 17,000km. The dealer couldn't replicate the fault blah blah blah, I got stuck into them and told them to stop bullshitting as I'm a mechanic in the Army and I still had to tell them how to check the steering ball joints as they had it on a hoist checking them and saying we can't see what's wrong hahahaha bloody idiots. I only took it there to get replaced under warranty. I've lost faith in dealers and will no longer use them.

[SeaComms]

I found it interesting that the Jeep specs for the ball joints were quite a significant amount of movement. Mine were stuffed by my reckoning at 20,000km, it wasn't until I started getting very bad wobbles at around 60,000 that I finally got them replaced. But only after another mechanic (vehicle inspector) advised they would not pass rego inspection, with the same movement that had at 20,000....

I decided to allow them to be replaced with the stock ones, providing they had no movement once done. Happy to say that 30,000km later they still have no movement. Seems like it may be the luck of the draw.

I should add though, at the same time I had the tie rod, drag link and front uni's all changed as well for excessive movement (all under warranty at 3 years old).

[mikalong]

Originally Posted by Banshee

Question about what is happening now; you said rail lines at 80k cause wobble.

Does it settle after a few seconds, or do you have to almost stop to stop them? Low caster from the lift can cause light steering that will cause a shimmy when you hit a bump even with no DW issues. I had this until I tried some adjustable lower control arms, then switched to AEV correction brackets. Both fixed that issue, but the brackets give a smoother ride due to the arm angles being better. This shimmy generally settles soon after it starts, but a true death wobble often requires you too almost stop to end it.

The OEM tyres are prone to going out of round, as well. I had mine checked the last time I had them balanced as I was getting vibration, particularly at certain speeds (~90-100). 4 out of 5 of the OEM GSAs had places on the tyre that were visibly 'higher' as it spun on the balancer.

No after crossing train line they only way to stop DW is to come to a near stop .