[Scales]

Yeah that's pretty much my advice mike, keep an eye on it.
And also to be aware that leaking oil may be more serious than first thoughts.

[orang(zuk)92]

Suzuki know how to fix it had it on a new 2008 after a lot of fighting with Suzuki they fixed it it comes.under a secret memo issue by Suzuki and will not do a recall

[Scales]

not a secret memo.

Its a service bulletin, and its mentioned at least 10 times in this thread alone, and on half a dozen other sites.


Suzuki dealerships are just retards and don't know about it most of the time.

[Scales]

By the way guys, found this pic on my phone too. This was the telltale that something was wrong inside the hubs. Theres water on the diff housing in this pic, I was cleaning the car after going to Fraser. Thats when I first detected it, so around Dec last year. I dont drive the car much (work 2 weeks on/off) so I hadnt put many km's on there since then, Drove the missus car when I was home.

[j-mac]

So are we seeing any/many 2012/2013 models with the death wobble? Paul W, you'll have to let everyone know if it comes back. This one issue is the one thing that is sticking in my throat about this car and I haven't even driven mine yet...

[zukenutter]

It's fixable don't stress.

[Paulw]

j-mac wrote:

So are we seeing any/many 2012/2013 models with the death wobble? Paul W, you'll have to let everyone know if it comes back. This one issue is the one thing that is sticking in my throat about this car and I haven't even driven mine yet...

Still hasn't come back yet and I do a lot of kms as it's my work car. I'm sure you will really enjoy the Jimny when you get it. The wobbles are only a concern when you start modding the Jimny and it can be rectified.

[kyzermattingley]

I'm about to try and kill this with mine or die trying

Have approx 4" lift front

I've already fitted
- new wheel bearings
- new kingpin bearings
- shimmed the kingpins to 7kg on the pull weight
- snake racing front arms
- rotated the mounts (and pumpkin in opposite direction) now runs 7deg caster
- raised Panhard bar mount
- raised (flipped) draglink point at the hub (re machined taper)
- 9 step adjustable tuff dog damper (set on 7) with custom linkage points

Went away, but has slowly been coming back to the point it's now annoying and does it almost every time I hit 70kmh


Set to do the following
- bigger tie rod ends on everything
- new bigger stiffer bushings on Panhard
- new solid 32mm OD Panhard, draglink and toe rod thing
- truss the top of the housing
- gusset/plate from the knuckle to the housing
- tighten steering box slightly

Hopping adding strength and weight will help alter the resonate frequency point


What do you think?



Kyzer

[joel]

the specs are so far from standard, where would one begin??

[zukenutter]

Every 12 months or so I start to get a little, very little, shimmy start creeping in. I go out and get some new rubber bushes that I modify to suit the panhard bush eye. I make them too big so it has to be jammed into the chassis mount with a jack, good for another 12 months
All Jims are different but I have found this seems to be my Jim's weak point. The first time I did this was after getting the shimmy back and so I swapped in the stock panhard with good bushes and it went away.

I have considered rose jointing the panhard but I fear for DD use it would be detrimental to the life of the Panhard mounts, also would transfer noise and vibration.

[Rob`]

I've got a 2012 Jimny with the facelift, I had no issues with wobbles at all ... until I fitted mud tyres. I just got a set of Maxxis MT-753 mud tyres put on last week and between 60 and 75km/h it gets the wobble. I have a steering damper ready to install to see if that will fix it, so fingers crossed that works.

My mate also has a 2008 Jimny with the same tyres as me and he had the same issues, fitted a steering damper (Pro-comp one from Jimny Bits if anyone is interested) and the problem is all but gone.

I'll report back once mine is fitted, but I'm waiting for Rus @ Jimny Bits to send me the mounting bracket for it.

[jimny_timmy]

kyzermattingley wrote:

I'm about to try and kill this with mine or die trying

Have approx 4" lift front

I've already fitted
- new wheel bearings
- new kingpin bearings
- shimmed the kingpins to 7kg on the pull weight
- snake racing front arms
- rotated the mounts (and pumpkin in opposite direction) now runs 7deg caster
- raised Panhard bar mount
- raised (flipped) draglink point at the hub (re machined taper)
- 9 step adjustable tuff dog damper (set on 7) with custom linkage points

Went away, but has slowly been coming back to the point it's now annoying and does it almost every time I hit 70kmh


Set to do the following
- bigger tie rod ends on everything
- new bigger stiffer bushings on Panhard
- new solid 32mm OD Panhard, draglink and toe rod thing
- truss the top of the housing
- gusset/plate from the knuckle to the housing
- tighten steering box slightly

Hopping adding strength and weight will help alter the resonate frequency point


What do you think?



Kyzer

I reckon you might benefit from balancing the tyres if you haven't already

[Jezza86]

reporting in i guess, type 3, 45-60 km/h'ish harsh wobble that amplifies and under heavy breaking can actually make the 30X9.5s lock and unlock like with abs (which i dont have) while trying to slow down.
2.5" of lift (40mm ome springs, 15mm spacer), 2" body lift, 3" corrected jb arms with stock jim bushes, jb ajustable panhards (new bushes), jb procomp non rtc dampner 30x9.5 bfgkm2 on speedy 15X7 desert rats with neg15 offset.

the amplification can be negated by sharply steering left or right. increasing steering wheel input pressure appears to eliminate energy and prevent it from further harmonizing and amplifying. this at 50kph takes approximately 2-3 seconds to stop the wobble, bust can result in disco lights and a breath test for swerving all over the road.
i never had wobble with standard arms, panhard, and 40mm lift and standard tyres.

first ill swap radius arms, and see ig the play goes away, or if the wobble is still there.
i have 4 new tie rod ends.

[atari4x4]

put the stock wheels back on if you still have them, wondering if it's the offset thats causing it.

[JonnoR]

atari4x4 wrote:

put the stock wheels back on if you still have them, wondering if it's the offset thats causing it.

I had/have the wobbles in my coil sierra. Was really bad with offset 30's on it, have put the stock tyres on now, problem isn't half as bad, can feel bumps grabbing hold of the wheel, but not the scary death wobble it was before where the wheel would jump out of my hands and shake like crazy. I am under the impression that bigger tyres and offset rims will amplify and play in steering components.

I can't seem to find too much wrong with all the bushings, but might try and replace panhard and tie rod end bushings, and see if that works.

[Mike57]

JonnoR wrote:

atari4x4 wrote:

put the stock wheels back on if you still have them, wondering if it's the offset thats causing it.

I had/have the wobbles in my coil sierra. Was really bad with offset 30's on it, have put the stock tyres on now, problem isn't half as bad, can feel bumps grabbing hold of the wheel, but not the scary death wobble it was before where the wheel would jump out of my hands and shake like crazy. I am under the impression that bigger tyres and offset rims will amplify and play in steering components.

I can't seem to find too much wrong with all the bushings, but might try and replace panhard and tie rod end bushings, and see if that works.

Look at the King Pins as well. Shimming these will help if not already done. Anything that adds weight at the end of the axle will cause the problem. Mine did it when I fitted manual hubs.

[losfer]

I have been fixing this issue with coily's and jimny's for years now and sometimes doing everything in the suzuki bulletins as well as our own methods has not got rid of the shimmy.

But surprising one method alone has solved the problem sometimes . everyone gets their wheels balanced as part of eliminating the problem . what we do now is get a corghi on car wheel balance . not a lot of places do it so you have to find a specialist wheel balancer or what we use is a guy that balances truck wheels "on vehicle".

This isnt the first thing we do , but all the other things mentioned in this thread i cant recall seeing this mentioned.

[Manusdei]

I've come across a small wheel wobble at approx 70kph in my new jimny, which is still stock standard, and only 1400kms old.. I reported it on the first service but nothing was done about it, they said they're going to contact suzuki Australia too check for any technical fixes..

It wasn't a proper death wobble, but enough to cause a bit of concern, seeing as the car is only 5 weeks old..

[zukenutter]

Keep at them to get it fixed, somewhere in this thread is a PDF of a suzuki service bulletin that your dealer should work through to resolve the issue.

Does anybody else have the bulletin handy to save searching page by page?

[Mike57]

ZN, yes I have it but not sure how to attach it?

[losfer]

the bulletin was a combined suzuki executive wankfest , i do have a copy at work , but it really isnt the be all and end all of fixes relating to the jimny shimny as i call it

[zukenutter]

Found it. Losfer is this the same as the one you mentioned?

zukenutter wrote:

Sorry but have been meaning to post this for a while.

SECRET FIX SUZUKI SERVICE BULLETIN

download/file.php?id=13713

[losfer]

haha yep thats it ...

love how it always points to the "end" yes of course its the end of the problem as far as they are concerned.

[zukenutter]

I've never been impressed by their lack of acknowledgement. Poor form when brand new cars have a bad shake.

[losfer]

I know this is a long thread and a lot of things have been covered but i will tell you how we tackled the problem previously and how we go about it now.

Theres several types of wobble or shimmy or death wobble and everyone needs to be treated with its own respect .

Some start as a wobble at 50-70 and can be accelerated out of , some start out at the same speed but cannot be accelerated out of and the only thing that will stop it is coming to a complete stop , some start while hitting a bump in the road , some start while travelling uphill . and of course if it happens when you press the brakes your rotors are warped (good detective work suzuki retards)

Early on in the piece suzuki used to refer people to us for a "steering damper" . when they rang us and asked for a steering damper we would ask them why. when they explained their problem we told them you dont need a steering damper (which we all know just "masks the problem")

we found 80 % of the time the problem was in the front control arm bushes . although not split or perished they allowed the diff to twist to give a castor related problem (shopping trolley effect) .

one of our first fixes (after checking all steering and suspension components for faults) were replacing the factory bushes for poly bushes .

then wheel align and balance and then steering damper . even then one vehicle was not responding to any fix and we got a corghi balance done and fuck me dead !!!!

these days we approach it slightly different with a little more knowledge and a lot of experimenting. and the desire for the customer to keep their money in their own pocket and not in our till , we now approach it this way.

1. inspect steering and suspension components, control arm , tie rod , drag link , panhard rod (had one that was just a loose r/h panhard rod bolt) also inspect for wheel bearing and king pin bearing/king pin play but not likely to cause a death wobble we make sure everything is right before proceding to the next step.
2. suzukis famous king pin shims , its a cheap fix if it works the shims are only $4.50 each and the labour involved isnt much , it doesnt take much to remove the tie rod and the swivel hub housing seal to check preload.
3. corghi balance , costs about $80-100 still cheap in the scheme of things.
4. control arm bushes , sometimes the skip to this step will resolve most of the problems , but at $320 for a set of bushes and a couple of hours labour its not the cheapest fix.
5. steering damper , yep last resort , if you cant fix it then mask it ...

of course this is on an unmodified vehicle where other suspension geometries havent been altered when being lifted etc.

[Jezza86]

first photo is inverted. i think it shows bad things. same with the second photo.
while i agree swapping back to standard tires and rims would likely solve the problem, im hoping the offset and tire choice are causal factors, along with other stuff like tie rod ends, king pin shims, and front arm bushes and if i fix those, i can continue to use my rather expensive tires. as for balance, the tyrepower localy just got a new machine, but i dont know if it balances or what. i have 2 more tyres and rims coming so might throw them on when they arrive to see if its a balance issue

[Jezza86]

also way earlier in this thread Royce mentioned attaching a steering dampener between the axle and the wheel end oth the drag rod. was this feasible? did anyone try it? could setting up a steering damper in the normal way be causing bump steer? as bump steer is part of my wobble issue, if i can eliminate that i think it will be half the problem won.

[zukenutter]

Jezza, save me going back to find out. Do you have lift? If so, do you have caster correction?

[Jezza86]

o have too much if anything, 3" jb arms with 55mm maximum, proberly more like 50 with the weight on it

[Manusdei]

I should say I've only come across it once, and not since after the first service. If it happens again, ill be taking it back to get looked over again.