I witnessed this personally the other day. I was driving down the road and was passing a Jeep when suddenly I noticed his front wheels began to vibrate violently. It was so bad that the Jeep began to throw off gravel and anything loose on it. The driver managed to hit the brakes to slow down and the wooble went away. I did some research on the web and found that this is a common problem because of steering linkage part becoming loose with age. There also seems to be a solution for the problem that involves replacing the defective original parts with heavy duty off road parts. Here is a video of another Jeep with the death wooble.

[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 04-15-2012).]

Death wobble is truly scary if you have never experienced it before. You don't necisarirly need to replace the worn parts with heavy duty offroad parts, just non worn parts.

i saw this on google news a few weeks ago, and can you believe jeep doesnt think there is a defect in their build? and wont issue a recall??!!!!! ontop of that it can happen in new jeeps as well.

quote Originally posted by gtjoe: Death wobble is truly scary if you have never experienced it before. You don't necisarirly need to replace the worn parts with heavy duty offroad parts, just non worn parts.

The Jeep guys I know say the opposite. Every aftermarket manufacturer has gone to much stronger components, but the OEM stuff is still sub-par... Personally, I'd upgrade anyway, just to be safe.

Though, this isn't limited to just Jeeps - it's a solid-axle thing. I've gotten some crazy vibrations while driving an F250 with 300k miles on a stock suspension.

Steering parts, brakes, and tires are things you should definitely not go cheap on.

I read an article about this, months ago. It said that it primarily affected lifted jeeps.
We had a TJ, just like the one in the video. Drove it for over 100K miles. It never experienced that problem. Not once.
But ours wasn't lifted. (The one in the video appears to be, although maybe only a body lift. So I dunno.)

That's not a defect. That's part of being 'trail rated'. It's new off road technology.

There was another thread about this and from what I've heard it's because 1 (or more) of the front suspension bolts are not the correct size. It's like they substituted an SAE for a metric bolt and it's not exactly the same size. That causes wobble that eventually loosens the bolt and enlarges the hole. It's a simple fix to replace it with the correct size bolt(s).

There's lot of info on YouTube about it, including video of the fix. I don't have time to look it up right now.

quote Originally posted by Formula88: There was another thread about this and from what I've heard it's because 1 (or more) of the front suspension bolts are not the correct size. It's like they substituted an SAE for a metric bolt and it's not exactly the same size. That causes wobble that eventually loosens the bolt and enlarges the hole. It's a simple fix to replace it with the correct size bolt(s). There's lot of info on YouTube about it, including video of the fix. I don't have time to look it up right now.

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum6/HTML/091886.html

250,000 miles on an 84 cherokee and i never replaced anything except shocks and 1 tie rod end. No wobble. But, I do remeber it happening more than once when I was young, riding in my father's 60 model f-100 Ford truck. It was----un-nerving.

Jeep
Just Empty Every Pocket

My roommate has a '98 Jeep Cherokee that's currently taking up room in our garage, as he's waiting on parts to come in to eliminate his "death wobble". There is SO much wrong with it that needs fixed, it's pathetic. After seeing the problems he has with that thing, I'd NEVER own a Jeep product!

I had a 68 VW Beetle that did the same thing. It got so bad that I finally got rid of it. The guy that bought it from me found out that the steering box was loose...he tightened up the bolts, and it never did it again, or so I was told.

I saw this on my jerep forum... Thankfully Neither of my Jeeps have ever had this problem But I was in my buddys jeep that does have it.. Very scary when it happens... This is why I keep up on my tie rods and such.. Next project for mine is a ZJ tie rod...

[This message has been edited by pontiackid86 (edited 04-16-2012).]

Death Woble is from a poor lift kit. The geomitry is off because of unequal or incompatable parts.

I saw a Jeep doing this about a month ago while going about 60...It was shaking so bad it was violent and thought forsure the lady was gonna wreck. It started shaking real bad she hit the brakes and it stopped. I was like what WTF..

quote Originally posted by pontiackid86: Lol From the hater who cant take his 4x4 off road

People who live in glass houses.

Brad

needs a sterring stablizer .... there is a recall for it !!! the stablizer is longer now and stiffer to keep this from happening

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BLUE BY YOU!
NYFOC

Years ago when I worked in a shop that specialized in 4WD stuff, we replaced many of the track rods on jeeps. It's not a new problem, and has been around since the 80's. The owner of the shop I worked with engineered a new end that was changeable with a heavy-duty tier rod end, as we would see plenty of premature failures of the OEM stuff.

Yes, not so much of a factor on 'stock' vehicles, but with basically ANY lift kit or larger tires, it would amplify the problem. Lift kits done correctly will come with a new track rod that's longer and bent sort of like an 'S' to help with the effects.

Really, it's kind of a stupid design, but these are relatively simple vehicles, and it was still an improvement over the old CJ 5 and 7 leaf springs for comfort and suspension travel. (although, I'd still like to have a decent CJ7)

Sorry OT but i had a skateboard that use to do that too! Peep this vid...Too Fing funny!!

http://www.youtube.com/watc...ature=endscreen&NR=1

quote Originally posted by gtjoe: Death wobble is truly scary if you have never experienced it before. You don't necisarirly need to replace the worn parts with heavy duty offroad parts, just non worn parts.

yep! And 'death wooble' is even worse

Ive seen various cars with that, probably from worn out neglected parts. Another popular one is worn out shocks. Ive seen cars on the freeway hit a bump and the tires shake up and down so violently, they look like their going to break off. Im sure some have. I know a girl that moved here from Cleveland with a full size chevy. The only things holding her whole rear end assembly under the car was the driveshaft, shocks and the cars weight. Both rear struts were rusted in two as were the mounts for trailing arms. She had me look at it and when she put it in gear the wheels would jerk forward or backward 4 inches.

My 54 Chevy pickup would do that at the right speed and right bump. I'd either have to speed up or hit the brakes to make it stop.
Was lots of fun when it happened.

Sooooo, what else is new? I had the front wheels on shopping carts do that at walking speed. My Dad's 49 Ford use to do that at 55 mph. After 65 mph it would smooth right out and then return upon deceleration thru the 55 mph range.

Its all about maintenance.

Spoon

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"Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne." - Kurt Vonnegut

quote Originally posted by Spoon: Sooooo, what else is new? Its all about maintenance. Spoon

Quoted for Truth.

In addition, folks go out an make changes to vehicles not thinking about what that change does to the rest of the system. In this case, lifts and big tires/wheels installation put more stress on stock OEM components not intended to handled the additional stresses and loads caused by such an installation. Does Jeep know this is going to happen, one would think so but, Jeep's liability is lessened or lost when such modifications are made. No Different with any vehicle or manufacturer. Change it or don't put in the effort/time/money for proper maintenance and you'll get a bad result every time. Don't blame the Jeep, blame the person who made the changes and did'n't complete the job or didn't maintain the machine.

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Ron
The key thing is to wake up breathing! All the rest can be fixed. (Except Stupid - You can't fix that)
Always remember these words of wisdom.

"The Lord must truly love fools, for he made them in abundance."

quote Originally posted by Spoon: Sooooo, Its all about maintenance. Spoon

This is not as true as you think. Did you notice what year that jeep was? There is no way a neglected new jeep is going to do that because of worn out parts, not so soon at least.
This is a lifted Jeep, clearly the cause of the problem is in the lift "kit" and was a poor design. Just as it is in the vast majority of other lifted jeeps that have this problem.