For some reason at 55MPH, not under and not over that speed, I get a weird vibration in the steering wheel. . . any help would be useful.

No new suspension work has been done, I checked all the stuff in the front end - its tight. . .

 

id guess wheel balancing issue.

 

a speed sensitive vibration in the steering wheel like you have described is almost always a tire balancing problem. even if you just had your tires balanced, i would try to have them rebalanced. it is not uncommon to have to have large off road tires balanced more than once to get them on right.

 

if you added new wheels and /or tires, id go back to the original shop and have them rebalance. if they tell you they're fine, go to another shop for another check. if you have heavy mud on one wheel, this could also be a cause, but id lean more towards balance.

 

Make sure they are dynamically balanced. I see more and more shops convert to static balancing which is not accurate enough for large tires.

 

these are not new tires, got 20,000 miles on them. just stock rubi rims/BFG. good idea though, I will get them re-balanced thanks guys.

 

To add to the already good advice above:

Depending upon wear patterns, the tire can change its balance w/o losing a weight, etc.

It can also slip a belt, etc, which creates a similar problem.

If you off road and air down a lot, the tire can slip on the rim as well, so that the weights no longer line up with the points on the tire they were compensating for, etc.

I have also seen improper torquing on AL rims that warps them a bit, which also acts just like an unbalanced tire.

As the steering wheel feedback is your clue, try swapping the front tires to the rear, and see if it matters.

 

I had the same thing thing and got them rebalanced, whcih solved the problem. Don't wait too long though as it will warp the tread wear. My spare is now a permanant spare as it got too warped to use in the rotation anymore.

 

I had a vibration from 55-60 mph in the steering wheel. Turned out to be a tire had lost its balance weights and suffered from scalping/cupping/whatever it's called (Redneck will chime in with the correct term--thanks, Redneck!). Swapped the tire with the spare and problem went away.