Dakota176

Tire vendor indicated that the Nexen tires were missing weights and were not balanced properly- its the same shop that did the last inspection/balance. All four tires replace with Yokohama, road force balanced, and alignment checked to be Ok. Noticeable improvement now but, yes but, it still has a vibration at 60-70 mph with the seats shaking and not much in steering wheel...suspect something is wrong in the drive line...will take it back to Dodge now to investigate.

Nexen 225-55/R19 tires. The road force is simulated using a Hunter Engineering Road force balance machine that pushes on and rolls the tire with about 1700lbs of force, and then the resistance is measured and adjusted to be lower. 15lbs or less of resistance indicates a reasonable amount of out of round condition between the tire and the wheel, but it will not detect a flat spot or defective belt. My tires road forced at 9, 8, 7 and 5 lbs, and on two separate tire services, they indicated that they had to adjust the weights so it seems that they tires will not stay in balance after driving the vehicle, which to me is a defect in the manufacturing process due to the variable spring rate in the tires. Pressures on all of the tires has been checked multiple times to be at 36 psi cold and then it'll show on the display to be 38-40 psi after running the vehicle which appears to be normal.

I picked up this vehicle with 5 miles on it and I noticed vibration at 50 and above in the steering wheel. At 900 miles, the alignment and tire balance was done and alignment was out slightly. Took it on a trip via interstate and at 70 the vibration was strong and the vehicle and seats shake. At 1800 miles, I had the car inspected and the tires were road force balanced. Headed back home on interstate and same issue with vibration so I took it to the Dodge dealer. They said it was the tires causing the vibration and they couldn’t help me. At 3600, I took it to another tire place and they performed another road force and adjusted mounting to get the tires under 10lbs but this didn't correct vibration issue (was reduced some). Also when driving at 70, you can pop into neutral and the vibration doesn’t change. Back to the Dodge dealer again and left the vehicle there for several days and they replaced the viscous damper on rear axle. This did seem to smooth out the car but shortly after at 4200 miles the vibration is coming back and getting more pronounced at 60 to 75 mph. The car has Nexen tires and they look ok and have been independently checked by four shops so I took it to another Dodge dealer and they think the issue is with the tires but wont work on the vehicle unless the tires are changed out by Nexen under warranty, but they wont facilitate the warranty (told me to talk to Nexen-I did and they told me the dealer should do it). Any suggestions here since my experience with Dodge product and dealers is at a all time low due to not standing behind their product—Dodge sucks!