Living with the VIBE?

[BNewman]

How many of you out there decided to live with the dreaded vibe? Should I wait for an official fix and does it get worse? I am going to go to dealership soon and have them monkeys mess it up some more like you all have written about. I've downloaded every thread concerning the vibe issue and printed it for them to read, damn nice book I must say. Now if monkeys can read we'll have something. Thanks guys

 

[Yo Hoot]

I seems to me D/C is putting the royal screw to the owners of vibraters. Mine was but the vibes subsided when I added the 35" tires and H2 rims.



D/C said they would notify when the fix was available... that was back in May last year. I hate even dealing with my selling dealership and other dealerships shun me because I didn't buy from them.



I NEVER had this problem with GM. GM has always made me happy service wise to th point where I actually didn't even worry when I took a GM product back for service.



Dodge has been terrible when I take mine in. They fix the underhood light and make excuses for the vibe, tell me they can't test drive it. Then they tell me they did not notice any problem with the passenger window slowness and hesitation about half way up. It's stone obviuos I said..... service manager says he and the mechanic watched it together... . what a joke. Wonder what else they do together in leu of fixing these trucks.



Needless to say they got a bad survey. Big whip.

 

[WStoops]

How many of you out there decided to live with the dreaded vibe? Should I wait for an official fix and does it get worse? I am going to go to dealership soon and have them monkeys mess it up some more like you all have written about. I've downloaded every thread concerning the vibe issue and printed it for them to read, damn nice book I must say. Now if monkeys can read we'll have something. Thanks guys

Mine was evident when I first took it on the highway at 880 miles. It started at 60 and got worse as the speed increased. Then the dealer worked on it and screwed up the alignment. The onset speed changed somewhat from 60 to 65 but when they redid the alignment, it went back to starting at 60. I now have 18,000 on it and have been waiting since May 04 for the much awaited fix that never came. My original dealer and 3 other dealers will not work on it for this problem. Now, as the miles on the truck have increased the vibration starts at a lower speed. I can now detect it on a smooth road at 55 mph. I don't think it is any more intense than it was when new but still so annoying. A vibration of that order will, over time, have an effect on u-joints or bearings or a seal somewhere, depending on what is vibrating. Mine is in Lemon Law and goes to the hearing on the 24th of this month. I love most of the features about the truck. Some of what I don't like besides the vibes are the short seat bottom on the leather, the thin sheet metal where the door hinges mount, the really horrible headlights, the overpriced, feature lacking but extremely accurate RB4 and the lack of rear wheel well liners. I think we have to face the possibility that there is no fix coming. That only leaves a few options, lemon law, trade it in, get it fixed outside the dealership network by a drive train specialist, or live with it. Don't expect any help from the non-existant DC Customer Service. :{

 

[CRumsey]

BNewman, Mine had / has the vibration and I found that some dealers will work seriously on it and some talk about it. Mine was obvious from the first time I ran it up to 75 MPH so as soon as possible I took it back to the dealer I purchased it from; this was back in march of 03. They told me all DC would allow was a rebalance of the tires as they were working on a fix! Therefore they would allow nothing more until the official fix was in. So you can see how long it has been since their engineers have been aware of this problem and I feel sorry for those who are still buying these trucks and a percentage of them still have the problem.



The only real solution is before purchasing a new truck be sure to take it out and run it up to 80 MPH and see if the vibration is present, if it is, walk away from that individual truck and take another one for a test drive. Because the vibration prone trucks will manifest the problem somewhere between 65 and 75 MPH per my observations and understanding.



Anyway to answer your question; in my experience a dealership that worked with me on the problem switched drive shafts; front and rear, rotated drive shafts front and rear; changed yokes and yoke angles, and road force balanced the tires among other things I can not remember all of at this time; ended up alleviating 80% of the vibration in my vehicle. It is still noticeable but not very much, so I am able to enjoy driving it on the freeway at those speeds now without my hands going numb on the steering wheel and the fuel peddle vibrating against my foot. I can barely feel it in my seat and the enterior rearview mirror still blurs but not nearly the way it was.