Can a bad shock cause steering wheel shimmy?

first things that come to mind are alignment (which you've addressed) and uneven tire wear .... don't think it could be the shocks, but I've been wrong before.......

HHmm, well cant be uneven tires since they're new. I imagine they could be defective though. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I have an appointment this weekend to have em Road force balanced. The location I bought my tires from don't have one of these fancy machines.

It may be just that you need your wheels/tires balanced. I had a shimmy up until yesterday when I motivated myself to go and have my wheels/tires balanced again. Since this little heat wave SoCal had I have lost weights off of my wheels for the truck and car. The truck take forever for them to balance due to the bigger tires the car is done in 20 minutes.

its more than like a balance problem with your wheel assembly....you should bring them toa tire shop and have the wheel and tire assembly roadforced and balanced.....that will match the rim and tire to the opertuned spot so you do not have a tire vibration....the dealership or any good tire shop should have that

dragonhead08 said:

HHmm, well cant be uneven tires since they're new. I imagine they could be defective though. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I have an appointment this weekend to have em Road force balanced. The location I bought my tires from don't have one of these fancy machines.

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One think i remembered from working at a wonderfull establishment that had a lot of these issues. (Pep Boys) Tires get "separations" a lot. this is when a part of the tread sits higher or lower than the rest of the tire. I know you probably don't have cheap tires on there, but i had it happen on my titan when i first bought it. I have the 18' good years. Run your hand across the thread and check or uneven spots..thats all that you can do before you go somewhere and they try to sell you a whole set.:flame:

Shimmy is usually caused by improperly balanced tires, a defective tire (possibly out of round or separation in the casing), or a bent wheel or even loose lug nuts. A bad shock can cause wheel tramp, where it bounces up and down while driving.

I think you guys are right. I hope the road force balancing works.
Knock on wood...