Again.
Just had over $1100 worth of front end parts put under my truck back in January.
No, I don’t have a lift kit. Factory height is too damn high as it is.
No, I don’t have oversized tires. Not even all terrain.

I had the work done at my local dealer at just shy of 80k miles. It now has 80800 on it.

Yes. I will be paying a visit to the dealer on Monday.

They probably need to install a better steering damper. May need to lower tire pressure too if it’s too high.

I assume this is a 4wd with a straight axle? This rarely happens, at least to that degree, with IFS.

What parts were replaced? They will need to be gone over, as well as checking that none that needed replacing were missed. The steering damper is one, as is the track rod (a diagonal brace that runs from the frame to the opposite end of the axle). It had to be aligned after doing this work. Is the caster within specs? Unfortunately, there is no way to easily add any. (This is much more a problem with lift kits and big tires, which yours doesn't have.)

Yes, 4X4 straight axle.

I have the ticket.
Replaced:
Long & short drag links
Track bar bushing & ball joint
Steering damper
Alignment & center steering wheel

And of course, all this was FoMoCo parts.
Very disappointing, to say the least.

Still cheaper than a new truck, but 80k miles? Seriously?
And I don’t load it heavy or even tow with it that often.

I would spin the tires on a high speed balancer, watch them spin and make sure that one of them isn't out of round or coming apart or something like that.

Have them check the track bar bushing and track bar ball joint.

O.k., maybe not the tires, but what are they, age & miles? If the tires are at all suspect, I’d at least do a rotation to check.

There are 2 known issues with the F series trucks. Local Ford dealers here will not acknowledge the problem. My shop has fixed several of them. The alignment spec is a little off. I believe we add a little caster to the front end. Also, they did have a batch of bad steering dampers. The oil would get areated and would not dampen properly. We had issues with aftermarket dampers not working properly. We only use OE replacement parts. The death wobble is caused by the axle shifting back and forth in the frame. When it happens, if you could look out the driver window, you could see the front axle shifting back and forth in the frame. That is the job of the track bar, track bar ball joint, bushing, and damper to tame that. I would look under your truck to make sure all components were replaced. Maybe try taking it to a reputable aftermarket shop for an alignment.

These stories point me to IFS 3/4 and 1 ton trucks for my future rv towing. Sorry for your repeated repairs.

My 2015 F350 had it at 60,000 miles. I had the dealership use Moog parts with grease zeros. It's now at 90,000 miles and doing fine.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
O.k., maybe not the tires, but what are they, age & miles? If the tires are at all suspect, I’d at least do a rotation to check.

I’m about due for tires. A full service, rotate and balance was done when the front end was rebuilt. It was time for service anyway.

Also, I trust this dealership. The family that owns it are old family friends. I graduated HS with the owners daughter. All our kids are in school together. The shop manager has been there since he was in HS. I know several of the techs....blah blah blah.
Never had anything but good service from this dealership.

So, I’m headed up there in a bit to see what they say.

Check steering gear mounting, torque, bolt stretch and lastly a cracked frame in the area of the steering gear mounting.

I had one come into the shop once when I was in the Southwest. It had been to several shops in town to no avail. How I found it, it was a quick "look at" while it was on the ground. Once the steering was "loaded", tires on the ground when you turned the wheel it literally pushed the frame side to side. I saw the front bumper move when the steering wheel was turned!

My 2010 F250 has to have the ball joints and bushings replaces about every 30,000 mi.

After the second set I sold it.

Needed tires anyway
Got a set on the way. New front shocks also. And they are going to tweak the alignment.

There were some big, 75% worn Wranglers on a used Tundra we got not long ago.

I ordered 2 Michelin LTX tires & had them mounted on front, 90+% or any vibration is gone. There was steering wheel vibration at some higher speeds, 50-65.

I’ll get two more by next Winter.

Death Wobble isn't tire vibration. Calling it Death Wobble is not an exaggeration. It's very similar to Tank Slappers on a motorcycle where the handle bars go violently and quickly back and forth from full left to full right while at speed.

In the truck, it's not unlike driving on a washboard gravel or dirt road in that the entire truck shakes except that it happens on relatively smooth paved roads and the steering wheel moves violently and uncontrollably left and right. The only thing that stops it is slowing down.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Death Wobble isn't tire vibration. Calling it Death Wobble is not an exaggeration. It's very similar to Tank Slappers on a motorcycle where the handle bars go violently and quickly back and forth from full left to full right while at speed.

In the truck, it's not unlike driving on a washboard gravel or dirt road in that the entire truck shakes except that it happens on relatively smooth paved roads and the steering wheel moves violently and uncontrollably left and right. The only thing that stops it is slowing down.

On a motorcycle Death Wobble is the more appropriate term. I once crossed a wheel trap on a Honda CB450 that was deep enough to put it into a, as you call it Tank Slapper, and it ended with me going over the High Side. If I hadn't been wearing a helmet I would have been Dead Right There. Because a spot on the back of my helmet had a mushy spot about 5 inches in diameter.

Also had a VW Beetle in the early 70's and they used a steering damper on them. When it wore out you would get a wheel shake right about at an indicated 37 mph and if you didn't speed up or slow down it would get bad enough to rattle the entire car. I became rather adept at replacing those dampers, bet I did it about every 30K miles.

I had a Jeep Wrangler that had been lifted and bigger tires put on it. It had the shimmy and shake at exactly 52 mph. If you slowed down the shimmy would diminish and stop, or if you sped up it would diminish slightly but never quite go away. Everything was checked, including the steering damper, which had been recently replaced with a stiffer one. The caster adjustment (an eccentric cam on the lower control arm, next to the axle) was maxed out, so I put adjustable upper control arms on it to increase the caster an additional 2°, beyond factory specs. (These were a huge pain in the ass to get adjusted, but that's another story.) This fixed it. Unfortunately, you can't do any of this with the F250.

Well, new tires, new shocks, a parts list as long as my arm....
We will see how this turns out.

Did ford re-engineer the front end on any newer models 16, 17 ? Anyone know?