• Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

Death Wobble Between 60-50 MPH

R

RSchurig356

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Michigan
I have a serious death wobble problem when I brake from 60-50 MPH. I try to brake and the whole jeep shakes violently. There is a slight rattle when driving between 50-60 MPH but nothing compared to when I am braking.

My jeep is not lifted at all, the tires are less than a year old and were just balanced a few months ago. I am not sure if the rotors are warped or if something else is causing it. Where should I start looking for solutions to this problem? I would like to figure it out myself instead of taking it in and paying for some mechanic to tell me what is wrong. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
warped rotors vibrating might also be exaggerating another worn item (s) ,play in balljoints, tie rod ends,wheel bearings,etc
 
Just a thought: Check steering stabilizer shock... I have a friend with a WJ that got mad death wobble when breaking. He replaced the stabilizer, and he says it hasnt happened since. Not sure if you are experiencing the same "death wobble" he did... Does your steering wheel react when the wobble happens??
 
Well the steering wheel shakes bad, and it feels like the front wheels are shaking left and right very quickly back and forth. And I don't feel pulsing in the brakes. I think its just the whole car shaking.
 
I think you have shaking a death wobble mixed up. If you have death wobble, you'll literally HAVE to stop the car ASAP...what it sounds like you're experiencing is a shake or wobble that's bad, but not bad enough to cause a crash. My guess it on the rotors, but I'd check everything steering/brake related over none the less.

~Scott
 
If your symptoms are initiated by braking and it appears that is the case, then brakes are where you need to look at first.

A very thorough inspection of all brake hardware is in order.

There appears to be a "cause and effect" relationship here............braking is the cause and shaking is the effect.

You should attempt to isolate the cause first, and go from there. It's the most methodical way of figuring this out.
 
If the wobble stops when you let off the brake pedal then it's not the death wobble. If it stops when you lift off the brake then all you need is a $50 pair of new rotors and you're back in business.
 
Xwhatever on brake rotors/hardware - that's what this sounds like.

Muddy Beast said:
I think you have shaking a death wobble mixed up. If you have death wobble, you'll literally HAVE to stop the car ASAP...what it sounds like you're experiencing is a shake or wobble that's bad, but not bad enough to cause a crash. My guess it on the rotors, but I'd check everything steering/brake related over none the less.

~Scott
Click to expand...
Not quite all the time... death wobble occurs when your suspension has a natural resonance frequency within the range it will see while driving normally, and a quality factor (the engineering meaning! death wobble is anything but quality!) above a certain threshold. When you drive down a bumpy road, your suspension is "pumped" by it, if it is pumped by a sufficiently high amplitude signal near to the natural resonance frequency it will begin to oscillate and will continue to do so until you remove the signal it's being pumped by - in this case, road vibration/bumps/expansion joints/potholes/washboards/whatever else. You just have to get it away from the frequency it's resonant at, this can mean speeding up or slowing down. Obviously your first instinct is to slow down, but I've tested this - speeding up will also kill it. I get fairly bad death wobble around 65-70mph but if I hold on, floor it, and get it up to around 80 it abruptly stops wobbling entirely.

No, I can't really suggest doing this instead of slowing down... just sayin'. Death wobble is not as mysterious as a lot of people make it out to be.
 
kastein said:
Xwhatever on brake rotors/hardware - that's what this sounds like.


Not quite all the time... death wobble occurs when your suspension has a natural resonance frequency within the range it will see while driving normally, and a quality factor (the engineering meaning! death wobble is anything but quality!) above a certain threshold. When you drive down a bumpy road, your suspension is "pumped" by it, if it is pumped by a sufficiently high amplitude signal near to the natural resonance frequency it will begin to oscillate and will continue to do so until you remove the signal it's being pumped by - in this case, road vibration/bumps/expansion joints/potholes/washboards/whatever else. You just have to get it away from the frequency it's resonant at, this can mean speeding up or slowing down. Obviously your first instinct is to slow down, but I've tested this - speeding up will also kill it. I get fairly bad death wobble around 65-70mph but if I hold on, floor it, and get it up to around 80 it abruptly stops wobbling entirely.

No, I can't really suggest doing this instead of slowing down... just sayin'. Death wobble is not as mysterious as a lot of people make it out to be.
Click to expand...

Damn man, I just read through this thread and when I saw that 'death wobble means stop asap' post I was going to type up essentially the same thing as you just did. You beat me by 10 minutes. Thanks! :D:laugh2: Granted I agree that most of the time you get DW its good to slow to a stop.

Edit: I used to get DW from pot holes once in a while, not very often though. After I replaced my tie rod ends and essentially every other steering related part, it was nice. Except I have found ONE spot that will still cause death wobble. There is one hill, with one pot hole, in one lane that will (without fail) cause death wobble for me. Its coming down a hill towards a stop light where I have to be in the right lane (turn right at the light). So I always had to brake somewhat hard coming down the hill, and hitting the hole led to some good fun until I slowed down to maybe 20mph :D
 
Last edited:
themangeraaad said:
Damn man, I just read through this thread and when I saw that 'death wobble means stop asap' post I was going to type up essentially the same thing as you just did. You beat me by 10 minutes. Thanks! :D:laugh2: Granted I agree that most of the time you get DW its good to slow to a stop.

Edit: I used to get DW from pot holes once in a while, not very often though. After I replaced my tie rod ends and essentially every other steering related part, it was nice. Except I have found ONE spot that will still cause death wobble. There is one hill, with one pot hole, in one lane that will (without fail) cause death wobble for me. Its coming down a hill towards a stop light where I have to be in the right lane (turn right at the light). So I always had to brake somewhat hard coming down the hill, and hitting the hole led to some good fun until I slowed down to maybe 20mph :D
Click to expand...

1. Stop driving on that hill. :twak:

2. Stop hitting that pothole. :twak:

3. Stop driving. :twak:

:D:D:D:D

OP--something is wrong. Crawl under the front, wheels on the ground, have a friend turn the wheel from side to side and look for loose components.

OP--pull the wheels and inspect the brakes. If you are getting a pulse in the pedal that means the rotors are warped to some degree. Buy or borrow a dial indicator and magnetic base and check the runout of the rotors.
 
Mine comes on around 40-55 but running 4:88s if I romp it I can get the front light enough that it comes out of it if I keep under hard acceration until past 55. I think mine is because of a worn upper bushing sleeve on the axle side but Im just living with it for another month or so because I have a different axle that has good bushing in it that Im putting under it. One day I was working on it and the axle was clean and all steering was clean, the next 2 or 3 days later it set in, the steering stabilizer was covered in oil out the shaft. I dont know if the s.s. blew from the wobble or if it caused it but just saying because Ive heard thats one of the first things to change when it starts happening because it will tame it alot if it is death wobble
 
joe_peters said:
1. Stop driving on that hill. :twak:

2. Stop hitting that pothole. :twak:

3. Stop driving. :twak:
Click to expand...
I haven't hit it in a couple years.

I couldn't not hit it. It was on the way home from work (from one of the 2 work sites I had to visit), it was in the lane that I had to travel in to make my turn, and it was wide enough that no matter how far to the left I stayed in that lane I would hit it. Oh I tried to avoid it, avoiding it just wasn't an option. And I was slowing down anyway so it usually only wobbled for a short while... though that was the worst DW I ever had. The first time was a real eye opener. By the end of the summer it just became part of the commute :laugh:

And regarding "stop driving"... NEVER! i will never stop driving. Driving is probably my favorite thing to do. Whether its driving a car/motorcycle down the road, a Jeep/dirt bike through the woods, a go-cart on the track (I still have yet to drive a shifter cart or car on a track though)... Anything... driving is my life, I will never stop :)
 
Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I was thinking of upgrading my rotors anyway to improve the braking performance. If I want some better stopping power, what do you guys suggest for rotors and/or pads?
 
kastein said:
Xwhatever on brake rotors/hardware - that's what this sounds like.


Not quite all the time... death wobble occurs when your suspension has a natural resonance frequency within the range it will see while driving normally, and a quality factor (the engineering meaning! death wobble is anything but quality!) above a certain threshold. When you drive down a bumpy road, your suspension is "pumped" by it, if it is pumped by a sufficiently high amplitude signal near to the natural resonance frequency it will begin to oscillate and will continue to do so until you remove the signal it's being pumped by - in this case, road vibration/bumps/expansion joints/potholes/washboards/whatever else. You just have to get it away from the frequency it's resonant at, this can mean speeding up or slowing down. Obviously your first instinct is to slow down, but I've tested this - speeding up will also kill it. I get fairly bad death wobble around 65-70mph but if I hold on, floor it, and get it up to around 80 it abruptly stops wobbling entirely.

No, I can't really suggest doing this instead of slowing down... just sayin'. Death wobble is not as mysterious as a lot of people make it out to be.
Click to expand...

Usually the fix it to replace the sloppy components, thereby removing the non-linearities of the system. Getting the alignment right helps reduce the driving force. Sometimes if everything else looks good, adding damping by replacing the steering stabilizer is a permanent fix. Although many would call it a band-aid, this fixed mine 4 years ago and is still fine.

In this case, I'd say he probably has warped rotors or something really sloppy. Checking the toe-in with a tape measure would be a good start as well.

I usually differentiate death-wobble from a typical shimmy, if the description includes the words "oh shit, I thought I was going to die!" :}
 
dude. it's the factory trackbar being worn out. i'm not just guessing here, i've been there and done it with stock xj's, zj's, and tj's. it's between 30 and 50 bux. get one, and a steering stabilizer, and an alignment. then post back up.
 
lawsoncl said:
I usually differentiate death-wobble from a typical shimmy, if the description includes the words "oh shit, I thought I was going to die!" :}
Click to expand...
Yeah, I used to get minor shimmies that I thought were the start of death wobble with my stock tires... then I put the 32s on and I was getting the start of death wobble for sure - if I hit a bump it'd shake violently a couple times, but then die out. As the tires wear down more (changing the unsprung weight and thus the resonant frequency of the suspension) and my bushings and steering stabilizer wear, it has gotten progressively worse. At first it would simply maintain the same manageable, fairly gentle wobble, but now if I hit certain bumps it'll shake so violently things that nuts and bolts bounce out of my cupholders, and not stop till I either get down to 50 or so, or get up to 80 or so. Nothing quite like driving home late at night, slightly drowsy, and being suddenly brought back to full consciousness by a bout of death wobble! :scared:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
AW4 Problem shifting first to second when hot
Replies
2
Views
1K
cruiser54
C
J
Help needed with nightmare XJ ABS to Non-ABS swap...
Replies
0
Views
66
JBinNY
J
C
Weird noise at 40-60 mph, no idea what it is
Replies
3
Views
1K
lawsoncl
L
U
Overheating? Quick help please.
Replies
9
Views
2K
75SV1
7
T
Quick question on stuck caliper
Replies
12
Views
2K
PacificEd
PacificEd
Back
Top