otw

I bought a 2001 Cherokee XJ last year with 137k miles. Overall the car was in reasonably good shape, but as of the first of the year I now have basically bought the car three times with the amount of money I have spend chasing down under carriage issues. Replaced has been; tires, brakes, shocks, both drive shafts, rear and front wheel bearings, rear axle bearings, front and rear differential bearings, front universal joints, front idler arm, front U joints, front upper/lower ball joints, steering box, steering arm coupler, power steering pump and right front wheel spindle. The car has been aligned probably ten times since I've owned it and the same goes for wheel balancing. That's about it, but I'm sure I forgot something!

With what has been done, my mechanics still can't find the core problem to a front end shimmy between 50 mph to 75 mph. This shimmy resonates throughout the car body and steering wheel. And it somewhat cycles (comes and goes) at times. I have noticed with the colder weather that in the morning the shimmy, at times, is barely noticeable, but as soon as the front end undercarriage heats up, the shimmy returns. The "death wobble" has been ruled out as the track bar seems to be ok. Lastly, even with all the work that has been done, I have always noticed two additional symptoms. The first is, the car always wants to pull to the right and the second is, I feel a lot of "road noise" in the steering wheel at all speeds.

Some of you might suggest that I need to see a "shrink" at this point, and you might be right! But having owned three Cherokee XJ's, three Grand Cherokee's and three Wranglers over the years, I really like this car and want to try to get to core of the problem.

I'm new to the Cherokeeforum so I'm hoping someone can help me with an "ah ha" moment.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks
OTW

cheroheep

I'm having the exact same shimmy at the exact same speeds. Sorry I haven't figured it out yet, and I need to before a long road trip in March. Tomorrow I will be replacing my lower control arm bushings to see if that helps. They are very old and have tons of play, so new ones are on their way. Said shimmy didn't manifest itself until I replaced the old track bar with a beefy Clayton off-road track bar. I'm assuming the old track bar had enough slop to mask the shimmy all along. I will let you know if the lca bushings help, per my driveway alignment.

95Cherokee

I had the exact same thing, even the cycling, turned out it was my wheels, new wheels cured it. They were warped or unbalanced in some way.

cheroheep

I could see that, I'm still running stock rims that are probably 25 years old. Not to mention all the air time, rocks, mud, curb rash... The list goes on. Looks like I need to convince the wife we need new heep shoes. Haha!

cheroheep

Well new control arm bushings didn't really help, shimmy is still there just not as bad. Tomorrow morning I'll use a dial indicator the check the run out on my wheels. This should help me find out if a wheel is out of round or ovaled from years of abuse.

xjgreen

Mine '98 is doing the same. I've balanced and rotated tires so don't think its tire or wheel related in my case. Weird thing going on. Maybe some one will chime in that's stumbled across the cause.

cheroheep

So I checked the run out on my front rims using a dial indicator while the front end was jacked up. Driver side measured okay, with in .005 run out, passenger side was where I saw issues. Ovaling measured .04 and side rim measured .02 on the passenger wheel. Noticing this I swapped it out for my spare ( same rim and tire) and the shimmy is no longer there. Kinda surprising since these wheels were balanced by les schwab les than a month ago. Not suprised they didn't catch that, schwabs quality has gone down hill lately. I hope my findings help you eliminate that pesky shimmy you have