while trekking through the snow and hitting small patches at low speeds. I can feel the steering wheel wobble and shake pretty abrupt. change mode same thing no change. doesn't do anything on dry. just normal operation. ruts, potholes,snow. steering is just jarring and wobble. doesn't seem solid.


truck has new control arms dealer installed about 4k miles ago. alignment performed.


**UPDATE**
snow has come and gone. since then I have taken the rover on some very mild dirt roads where the smallest indentations on the road are present. just driving on a dirt road and the variations of a dirt road and the wobble in the steering is extremely prominent. so the theory of my tires and snow packed in every nook and crany is out the door.


any ideas on where to start.

 

You would not still be driving on the original factory Goodyear Wrangler tyres would you.

I assume the wobble bit has nothing to do with the antilock as you are not on the brakes when the fuss arises, hence it is most likely the tyres.

Those OEM Wranglers were great tyres in California, but once it snowed and you tried to cross little, (less than 1 inch), ridges of snow, the front end would shake. I soon got a second set of rims with winter tyres and only drove on the Wranglers in summer.

 

Thanks for the post but my tires are spanking new. Cooper discovers. It's not the tires feels like it's deeper than that

 

So you are saying you had the problem before you installed your new Cooper's or just that there was no snow until now?

I regard myself as a Goodyear fan - have them on my airplane etc, and those particular Wranglers were about the first time I have ever had anything odd occur with any Goodyear product. In defence of Goodyear, the Wranglers that were OEM with the 3 were not your average Wrangler but instead, the HP's - high performance rubber in the XL rating - basically race truck tyres.

The reason I said "about", it that I had once put on my Buick Roadmaster, Goodyears specifically designed for Bentley's which in these days were basically a fast Rolls Royce. At speeds in excess of 90 mph, there were a good tyre, but in the winter, kind of dangerous.

As such, I wonder about your Coopers as they tend to be special purpose tyres rather than general use.

 

Mine usually has vibration cause of all the snow getting stuck in the wheels. Shakes it self out though

 

Good call, Benton. That may be exactly what it is!

 

If you mean the snow gets stuck in the tread, then that is a tyre problem.

As to stuck to the rims, that would be something new to me as well. Yes, it can happen where mud etc freezes on the inside of the wheel rim but what with the size of the calipers these days, there is not much space for lumps any longer.

Having the wheel wells full and frozen up so there is no space for suspension movement is common, but snow freezing to the tread and causing a wheel balance problem, that I would regard as unusual.

 

The rims will hold a fair amount of mud or snow / ice if you get into it deep enough. That will throw the balance off until you clean it off. I never noticed it as a problem with normal highway driving though.

If you are getting wobble in the front steering wheel. The lower coupler in the steering column, the tie rod ends, ball joints should be checked.

 

I have had the rear rims fill with frozen mud etc on GM pickups as the wheels are fairly big and the rear brakes kind of small so there is lots of room for debris.

Yes, the steering column coupler sounds like a good place to start looking as it is an item easily ignored in an initial inspection.

 

update in first post