I have a Toyota Tacoma 06 and my wife drives our 07 Camry hybrid. The Camry has 62k miles on it. We've had it since new. It had Bridgestones on it from the factory.
I did not rotate the Bridgestones at first and by the time I did I noticed a slight vibration in the steering wheel. When I rotated again the vibration reduced but moved to the back. As the tires wore down the vibration got worse. I should have taken it back to the dealer but thought it was my fault for not rotating correctly.
I replaced the factory tires with Goodyear Eagle GTs, mounted and balanced with 4 wheel alignment (no adjustments needed with alignment) at 25k miles. I recently rotated with oil change and the vibration was terrible. It shook the water bottles in the cup holders.
So as for now I rotated the tires back and the vibration reduced. (at only 1k miles) I am looking to replace the tires again and the tires that are on now are barely worn. Only 36k on a 60k tire.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

well, 1. i am confused on all the changes and rotations.
2. does it just shake, or shakes at specific speed and sort of wrooms when it does it?
3. how exactly did you rotate tires? there are specific patterns for radial tires rotation.
4. by any chance, your tires do not have a nice clearly posted arrow on the side wall? they are not directional?

kinda sorta does not sound like it's tire related. but i need to understand better when the tires were changed, how they were rotated, and how many miles you have on new set of tires. if it's 36K on 60+ warranted tires, they are over 50% worn out.

on a quick note, check if you have cupped outer lugs. they should be worn out flat; if you have them worn at angle down, usually, forwrd, you have issues in suspension causing this.

on a 2nd quick note, tires quality dropped down significantly. radial pull is everpresent; you may have one of them out of round tires, with cord ripped somewhere in the center line and resulting in hump.

 

Have the front and rear struts checked. Sounds like one (or more) of them is bad and letting your tire 'bounce" and get flat spots.

 

Many years ago I used have my tires rotated and balanced ever 30,000 miles. This roar kept getting louder and louder from the back seat area. Once rotated and balanced the roar was very low.

My friend owned the tire shop so I drove back to ask, what cause the roar. He told me that the cars back end being lighter causes the rear tires to bounce around more on the pavement. That causes cupping which causes the roar. He recommended 7500 mile front to rear rotation. I did better than that and took it for Rot & Bal ever 5000 miles ever since, same as my oil and filter change. This cured the roar problem once I went with new tires from then on.

Some tires can have a hard place in the rubber side wall. This also can cause vibration at 40 to 60 mph. I had a single Goodyear tire that was like that. I inflated it to 40 psi and that helped eliminate the side flexing and hid the trouble. I found which tire once it was up front the vibration was less.

I now buy my tires from tirerack because they open ever tire and put it on a special machine that checks the sidewalls for this same problem. I bought a set of Michelin's Oct 2009 from this same company.

This problem is not as bad as back in the early 80's due to better manufacturing methods.

Bryan, I do hope you find your vibration problem soon and with new tires it does sound like some kind of mechanical problem.

 

I rotate every 5000 miles with oil change on all my cars. The only time I ever get vibration/roar like described is when the tires are not properly balanced, or with tread separation (happened to me once). I've had cars that were sensitive to even slightly unbalanced tires, but the Camry is not such a car.

I would go back and get a rebalance.

-- Alan

 

personally, i wouldn't use word "roar", but different tires sound after rotation is normal. should be none if you rotate front to back same side. direction of the lugs wear is the same.
personally, i rotate tires criss/cross. this changes sides and direction, and results in modest noise for about a 1000 miles till lugs shave off in the new position.
it have never ever resulted in vibration. i do rotations twice a year on 4 vehicles as of now, we almost always had at least 3 cars, so i am quite familiar with tire related issues.
vibration like this usually sounds like an unbalanced tires somewhere, or heavily uneven wear pattern, but this will be relevant to suspension/steering components, not to tire itself.
possible solution is to balance tires ON VEHICLE. there are special balancers that do this.
personally, i'd have started with strict check on tierod ends and ball joints, then on hub bearings. sometimes halfshafts go unbalanced, but per member, vibration changes after rotation.
i think, we need to let the member clarify all this further.

 

Wow! Thanks guys for all the suggestions. I rotate every 5k miles. I bought these tires from Tirerack.com
I hope the tie rods and struts are ok and I think they are because this happened with the first set of tires. It seems as they wear down it gets worse. Other than the vibration the sound is a slapping of the roadway.
You can hear it at all speeds even slowing to a stop. It really gets bad with the vibration between 60 and 80 MPH. Speed limit on highway in VA is 70 MPH and this little Camry likes to go!
I always rotate front to back same side but maybe I will try crossing.

ukrkoz, the balancing on the vehicle sounds like a great idea. I just need to find somewhere around here that does that service.
I am also wondering if one of my wheels is bent or not balanced correctly, but that should vibrate all the time even if the tire is brand new or old.

Again thank you all very much for your suggestions!!

 

hi bryant.
they do have them balancers, they do not advertise them too much though. and it's costly, i think it's around $75 a wheel.
balancing is the game of weight distribution and momentum. has little to do with bent rim/-s.
here's a friendly suggestion. awfully sounds like you have unbalanced wheels, as you mention it's bad in a specific speed range.
so, a) check if the weights are still in place; alloy rims are notorious about losing them, and losing them fast; b) check if you have both inner and outer weights in place; i was seriously warned that there MUST BE weights on both sides of the rim; c) if you miss weights, you have to re-balance, unfortunately; so this is what you do: when you are at the tire shop, you tell them to use "glue-on" weights ONLY and cover them with sticky tape. looks much like kitchen foil.
benefits you will have are: - weights do not fall off; - balancing is better, as they place weights dead on the rim center. if shop starts giving you attitude, move to another place; don't waste time and energy.
this is the only way we can balance alloy rims on my wife's Lexus. otherwise, balancing lasts for maybe a week, as weights will NOT stay on the rims, period.
you still need to check out tierod ends and hub bearings; up/down bounce is also caused by ball joints going bad.

 

Bryan,

The wheels on a TCH do NOT have "inner" and "outer" weights to balance them. They are placed with adhesive on the centerline of the wheel and can be seen in the openings between the spokes if you look closely. With two sets of tires doing the same thing, I highly doubt that both of them were unbalanced the same way.

Your ball joints, bearings and tie rods end will not cause the tires to "flat spot" as they have very specific wear patterns for those problems that you have not mentioned. The struts on the TCH are a known issue and do go out at very early mileages for some people. Mine needed to be replaced at the 60,000 mile mark but several users have had them replaced as early as 25,000 miles.

Before you spend a lot of money without needing to, have a mechanic you trust check the struts on the car. While he is there, also make sure he checks the springs to make sure one is not broken and they are seated correctly in the bumpers.

Just to make sure, your tires have flat spots at random locations around the tire that are spread equally across the tread, it that correct?

 

Sounds like a bent rim to me.