Death Wobble

[HHGadget]

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[AVGeek99]

Ugh... My '23 JLUR with a 3.5" lift and 35" tires is currently at the Dealer for death wobble. They are already pushing the steering stabilizer. I originally took it to a reputable Jeep and 4x4 shop in the area and they did an alignment and made sure everything was tight, diagnosing the issue to a clicking and some play in the steel steering box. They indicated it should be covered under warranty since I only have 28k miles on it, so I took it to the dealer. I had four severe cases of death wobble just driving the one hour from Jeep shop to the Dealer near me. They wouldn't stop unless I got under 30mph.

Ball Joints

 

[jeepingib]

Let's see, the factory has a documented history of not torquing components properly during the build. Plus in the name lighter and cheaper parts, we have ball joints that are known for early failure, steering links made of thin wall tube construction and more non serviceable joints, and the trackbar is constructed the same way, and terminates on the frame at a mount that has been seen to flex because of the bad welds and thin metal construction. And in many cases factory caster is on the extremely low end which has an unsettling effect on the steering feel. All of these points are potential causes that can introduce oscillation. It's easy to engineer a fix, upgrade all of these components to HD components and reinforce the frame. But it's costly. The whole reason this is more common on newer Jeeps, is that it's costly to do right the first time. So instead they keep kicking the can down the road.

You keep mentioning stabilizer use on bikes, do you know why it's needed on sport bikes but not really necessary on cruisers? It's the aggressive steering angle. The closer it is to vertical the faster steering response is. Which is desirable for sport bikes built with aggressive maneuvers in mind for the tracks that inspired their design. But at higher speeds oscillation can occur due to the angle and the only thing that prevents it if you don't have that stabilizer is your noodle arms. The cruiser is more stable at speed because it has more angle which settles the steering and acts to make it less twitchy. But this makes steering in tight low speed scenarios more laborious.

Caster is very similar in this regard. Factory caster spec is -4.5° +/- 1° which some Jeeps are coming from the factory right at around the 3.5 ish mark. Compared to the feel of older solid axle designs of the past that had -6° plus or minus a half a degree. You may see a correlation between the two beginning to form.

The factory engineers had to make several compromises when they built the JL. This doesn't mean they weren't smart enough to design it properly and keep it from failing. It means that they had to design it to be good enough for the cost they were allowed to spend on components and still be light and efficient. Which in real life translates to exceedingly common failure. This isn't a matter of them not being able to engineer a solution. It's that they know that a stabilizer is a cheap bandaid for the bullet wound and hope that you get through your warranty before you realize how much blood loss you have.

 

[desmo2]

You keep mentioning stabilizer use on bikes, do you know why it's needed on sport bikes but not really necessary on cruisers? It's the aggressive steering angle. The closer it is to vertical the faster steering response is. Which is desirable for sport bikes built with aggressive maneuvers in mind for the tracks that inspired their design. But at higher speeds oscillation can occur due to the angle and the only thing that prevents it if you don't have that stabilizer is your noodle arms. The cruiser is more stable at speed because it has more angle which settles the steering and acts to make it less twitchy. But this makes steering in tight low speed scenarios more laborious.

Under most conditions, sport bikes still don't need a steering stabilizer even with the more aggressive rake. Sport bikes have ridiculous power to weight ratios, which allows the rider to apply enough power to either reduce the load on the front wheel or loft it off the ground completely. THAT is when the rake becomes an issue. The steering stabilizer absorbs the effect of that lightened front end load at speed, or when returning the load to a front wheel that isn't completely in line with path of travel.
I think you and I agree a steering stabilizer on a motorcycle is completely irrelevant to the argument at hand.

@brconflict This debate seems to be everyone else against just you. You might want to consider why that is. Much of what you have said is true. You became the odd man out when you defended replacing steering stabilizers and not fixing underlying issues. You want a blanket fix for every Jeep, but as stated dozens of times already, there can be multiple causes for death wobble. A steering stabilizer isn't one of them. I am not an engineer, and my opinion was formulated after weighing the knowledge and experience of others...including yours.

 

[brconflict]

Under most conditions, sport bikes still don't need a steering stabilizer even with the more aggressive rake. Sport bikes have ridiculous power to weight ratios, which allows the rider to apply enough power to either reduce the load on the front wheel or loft it off the ground completely. THAT is when the rake becomes an issue. The steering stabilizer absorbs the effect of that lightened front end load at speed, or when returning the load to a front wheel that isn't completely in line with path of travel.
I think you and I agree a steering stabilizer on a motorcycle is completely irrelevant to the argument at hand.

@brconflict This debate seems to be everyone else against just you. You might want to consider why that is. Much of what you have said is true. You became the odd man out when you defended replacing steering stabilizers and not fixing underlying issues. You want a blanket fix for every Jeep, but as stated dozens of times already, there can be multiple causes for death wobble. A steering stabilizer isn't one of them. I am not an engineer, and my opinion was formulated after weighing the knowledge and experience of others...including yours.

Thanks for the response. I'm the odd man out because other assume that there is indeed another underlying issue that is broken and that I should demand my local dealer to look deeper. I don't expect a weak stabilizer to have been the root cause (never did). But unless someone has a real pitch I can use at the dealer that they will accept, then the issue isn't going anywhere. If I experience DW again, trust me, I'll be there demanding they dig in.

Yes, the steering stabilizer on bikes also battles aggressive over-steering by riders and off-center alignment when the front end drops. But it also prevents wobbling which is very much like DW from uneven pavement or odd occurrences of sudden angle changes. It slows that effect.

There's a lot of back and forth about worn out components. I don't counter that, except that the consensus is that the stabilizer was only a band-aid, not perhaps an engineering decision made by Jeep to help battle a long-standing problem inherent in the design of the steering, front suspension, and straight axle. That's part of engineering. A very real part of it.

A blanket fix is to ditch the straight front axle. I don't know another permanent fix to DW.

When we can drop the argument that Jeep must be hiding something because they are an evil empire, I'll concede. I'm not defending them. If they are hiding something, I'd love for them to come clean. Otherwise, I find the conversation against me redundant and pointless. There is no remedy for a nefarious manufacturer except to stop buying their product. Period.

 

[brconflict]

Ok, so I’m out. I’m not going to waste my time arguing with people who just throw stones and argue endlessly without any action. If my points make no sense then I’ll let you guys enjoy your party and I’ll get back to the greater things important to me. Have a nice week everyone! Please feel free to post all the sarcasm and memes you’d like after this. It’s your party.

 

[gek]

Thanks for the response. I'm the odd man out because other assume that there is indeed another underlying issue that is broken and that I should demand my local dealer to look deeper. I don't expect a weak stabilizer to have been the root cause (never did). But unless someone has a real pitch I can use at the dealer that they will accept, then the issue isn't going anywhere. If I experience DW again, trust me, I'll be there demanding they dig in.

Yes, the steering stabilizer on bikes also battles aggressive over-steering by riders and off-center alignment when the front end drops. But it also prevents wobbling which is very much like DW from uneven pavement or odd occurrences of sudden angle changes. It slows that effect.

There's a lot of back and forth about worn out components. I don't counter that, except that the consensus is that the stabilizer was only a band-aid, not perhaps an engineering decision made by Jeep to help battle a long-standing problem inherent in the design of the steering, front suspension, and straight axle. That's part of engineering. A very real part of it.

A blanket fix is to ditch the straight front axle. I don't know another permanent fix to DW.

When we can drop the argument that Jeep must be hiding something because they are an evil empire, I'll concede. I'm not defending them. If they are hiding something, I'd love for them to come clean. Otherwise, I find the conversation against me redundant and pointless. There is no remedy for a nefarious manufacturer except to stop buying their product. Period.

The pitch is: Once you get your new stabilizer from the dealer under warranty, give them the finger and drive it to a real shop with real mechanics and pay to fix it properly.

Getting the dealer to do anything else is a waste of your time and relying on a technician to diagnose something that doesn't throw a code is like asking a proctologist to look at your toothache.

 

[yokramer]

Ok, so I’m out. I’m not going to waste my time arguing with people who just throw stones and argue endlessly without any action. If my points make no sense then I’ll let you guys enjoy your party and I’ll get back to the greater things important to me. Have a nice week everyone! Please feel free to post all the sarcasm and memes you’d like after this. It’s your party.

This aint an airport you dont have to announce your departure.

 

[jeepingib]

Thanks for the response. I'm the odd man out because other assume that there is indeed another underlying issue that is broken and that I should demand my local dealer to look deeper. I don't expect a weak stabilizer to have been the root cause (never did). But unless someone has a real pitch I can use at the dealer that they will accept, then the issue isn't going anywhere. If I experience DW again, trust me, I'll be there demanding they dig in.

Yes, the steering stabilizer on bikes also battles aggressive over-steering by riders and off-center alignment when the front end drops. But it also prevents wobbling which is very much like DW from uneven pavement or odd occurrences of sudden angle changes. It slows that effect.

There's a lot of back and forth about worn out components. I don't counter that, except that the consensus is that the stabilizer was only a band-aid, not perhaps an engineering decision made by Jeep to help battle a long-standing problem inherent in the design of the steering, front suspension, and straight axle. That's part of engineering. A very real part of it.

A blanket fix is to ditch the straight front axle. I don't know another permanent fix to DW.

When we can drop the argument that Jeep must be hiding something because they are an evil empire, I'll concede. I'm not defending them. If they are hiding something, I'd love for them to come clean. Otherwise, I find the conversation against me redundant and pointless. There is no remedy for a nefarious manufacturer except to stop buying their product. Period.

That's a quite ridiculous take on what has been expressed here. Jeep isn't nefarious, or evil, and that hasn't been expressed here. If you truly are an engineer, then you know that you have to design within the parameters given to you. If those include things like cost, weight, fuel consumption, etc. then compromises have to be made. The system is designed well enough, that most people are fine with it, as long as things are torqued and tightened. There have been several recorded instances with that not being done properly, with some ball joints being hand tightened only even.

Yes, the stabilizer is an engineering decision, based on the fact that they are very cheap to manufacture and replace, and it will cover up oscillations that are introduced based on lightweight and non-serviceable components.

This is similar to the engineering problem in many textbooks. There is an old hotel, and the elevator in it is slow and small, and guests complained about it. But the constraints of the hotel meant that the floors around the elevator would have to be completely redesigned to accommodate a new larger, faster elevator. This would be very costly and disrupt business for a long time frame as well. Instead the expert engineer designer installed mirrors in the elevator. It didn't fix any of the actual issues, but people weren't as bored, and didn't feel as claustrophobic in the small space anymore.

 

[Terrymo]

Ok, so I’m out…I’ll get back to the greater things important to me.

Awwww…just as I suspected…you do care

 

[brconflict]

Awwww…just as I suspected…you do care

Perhaps we should both get a life, then. No, I see the alerts in my email, and naturally I'm curious to see exactly how much abuse I'm thrown to. Very friendly, I can see. I'm sure some here would just be a gift to hang with.

 

[jeepingib]

Perhaps we should both get a life, then. No, I see the alerts in my email, and naturally I'm curious to see exactly how much abuse I'm thrown to. Very friendly, I can see. I'm sure some here would just be a gift to hang with.

I don't suppose your middle name is Kevin?

 

[yokramer]

I don't suppose your middle name is Kevin?

 

[Terrymo]

Perhaps we should both get a life, then. No, I see the alerts in my email, and naturally I'm curious to see exactly how much abuse I'm thrown to. Very friendly, I can see. I'm sure some here would just be a gift to hang with.

So down for the count, but not out….i get it now.

 

[gek]

Perhaps we should both get a life, then. No, I see the alerts in my email, and naturally I'm curious to see exactly how much abuse I'm thrown to. Very friendly, I can see. I'm sure some here would just be a gift to hang with.

If you think any of this was abuse you should probably go ahead and quit the forum all together because this was about as civil as it gets. But just to forewarn you, if you decide to not listen and double down when you are wrong the same thing is going to happen on bronco6g when you finally fix your death wobble.

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