I was passed on a four lane yesterday travelling between Calgary and Edmonton. The truck passing was a Gen 3 4x4 Dodge Diesel. There is an interval of this road that does require some repair, rutted and has some patches. I generally switch lanes for the 3-4 miles of this section. I was in the hammer lane the pickup was about 100 yards ahead of me at this point of time. Suddenly the brake lights came on as it veered to the right straddling the shoulder line as I gained on it slowly I began to watch him closer, sure enough the next little section of uneven pavement the death wobble started up again..... it scared the hell out of me watching it, I could actually see daylight breaking out under the front wheels as they shimmied up and down..... holy crap!!!!!!! I don't know if anyone has ever had the opportunity to witness it before but if I was a police officer in that position of my vision I would have had to stop the truck and shut down due to unsafe mechanical problems
Luckily I have never had this occur to me in mine yet and I hope it never does.
The truck looked reasonably stock. it was a work truck mind you and it looked like it had been worked, perhaps it had weak shocks as well which probably would have not helped the situation much. I hope I don't have the opportunity to see an incident like that again, I'm sure if the road had been wet or icy he would have lost complete control.
I have always kept the Death Wobble thing in the back of my mind since I started hearing about it, and now I have seen how severe it can be.

Take care everyone

Driller

 

I have had it happen a few times to my truck before,, I seem to have it fixed now, but wow it was sure tough to track it down. With these trucks it seems that you need to advance the castor to very max that it can take around 5 degrees, fixes it right up

Kevin

 

After reading about the "death wobble", I've started checking out what my 06 doesn't have that my 2000 did. One is the rear sway bar. I never changed the shocks on my 2000 until it had over 100K on it. I NEVER had any wobble at higher speed on rough roads or in inclement weather.
The harmonics of the suspension that start that death wobble can probably be stopped in several places in the driveline/suspension. I'm betting a rear sway bar can stop those death wobble harmonics or dampen them considerably.

 

I had it happen twice on my truck. Kind of funny to see the look on peoples faces as they drive by your truck shaking like that, but not funny at all to be driving the truck. The first time I had it it was the shocks. Second time was a bad set of tires.

 

mine was ball joints then tires then shocks.....so wierd....no one really knows what cause's it for sure

 

Mine was Ball joints... With only 5000 miles on her. I had the same kind of incident on the freeway!! Scarred the crap out of me.

Shane

 

I only had one DW incident, but it also was on the tollway at 70+ on a curve. Scarred the c.... out of me and the mustang next to me I almost nuked.

Mine was a combo of tire pressure, very soft shock settings and loose steering stabilizer shock. Only happened once, but once was enough.

 

Don Thuren is on the case. He's doing research on the causes (mostly the 3rd gens).

 

I've heard that leveling kits can cause this. Any truth to that?

 

All I've ever heard is it's a mystery and no-one knows. It's the only thing that bothers me about my truck. It's never happened and I hope it never does. But every time I cross RR tracks I always cringe and think to myself "wonder if that's gonna make it do death wobbles". You would think something like this was prone to cause wrecks and DC would be forced to look into it, correct it, and do recalls. But I don't suppose it will ever come to that unless there's a class action suit being brought against them by injured parties.

 

Nobody knows for sure, had it happen a few times, but had worn ball joints, weak shocks, bigger tires, & levelling kit. Maybe a combo. of everything but then again guys with stock stuff have had it happen. Scary as walking in on your parents when you were a kid. Got tires rotated the other day and all four ball joints gone again but haven't had death wobble for a long time. Just relieved about my lifetime warranty on my ball joints. First set was 130000km and this set lasted 70000km and were suppossed to be "heavier duty". Thank god for warrantys though and I don't mean from the dealer, seems like pulling teeth is easier than getting any warranty work done by the dealer. I'll give them credit where credit is due and they're really good at taking monthly payments.

 

Any of you guys who experience DW from Alberta, heads up, don't cross that imaginary line into Sask. I didn't sleep for a week till I had the truck all tight again with some new parts and new shorts. It's just nuts over there, but you guys probally know that.

 

It is awful isnt it, so far I seem to have it licked

Kevin

 

I used to own a 2001 half ton on 37's that did that. I took care of it by installing a dual steering stabalizer.

 

There is a new TSB for this. It's 22-something. It doesn't seem to go far enough, but at least DC is finally admitting the problem. It addresses tire pressure, tie rod ends and their boots, and sterring stabilizer. I replaced my stabilizer with the part number from the TSB, but it seems weeker than the original. I haven't experienced DW (yet).

Pete