Forum Discussion

ksu_j's avatar
ksu_j
Explorer
Apr 13, 2017

Suburban 2500 Questions

Hi all. I have a 2008 Chevy Suburban 2500. It only has 61,000 miles on it. I was curious if anyone with a similar vehicle has had the drivetrain vibration issue? This one used to be REALLY bad. I put $1000 worth of new tires on it. No different. Asked to have them road force balanced. No different. I finally demanded that the mechanic take the drive shaft off and rebalance it and then reinstall it. This took out about 85% of the vibration.

My question is, is there anything else to be done? It still has a pretty bad vibration whenever there's a decent crosswind. I don't know why that would matter, but it seems to. Even under good conditions, I can still feel it vibrating, but it's more of a hum further back in body of the car than the all out dashboard rattling that was happening.

Would new shocks all the way around help? The ride is really pretty bad now and it seems even a minor pothole or crease in the road thunks pretty hard. I put most of this on being a 2500 heavy vehicle with 10 ply tires.

I've heard others reference Bilstein shocks? Yellow ones? Think that would help with the little remaining vibration left?

Sorry for the long post. Just curious about other's thoughts on both the driveshaft issue AND the shocks.

For what it's worth I did have this into a transmission/driveshaft shop to have them look through the entire drive train to include driveshaft, U-Joints, etc. They said all looked fine. (even before I had the driveshaft rebalanced).

Any and all ideas or opinions welcomed!

Thanks.
  • STEVEO496 wrote:
    Check the carrier bearing on the rear driveshaft if equipped.


    Yep. Thought about this one. This particular model of suburban apparently doesn't have a carrier bearing. I was really hoping that was the problem.
  • Thanks all for the ideas. Let me through this out there too.

    If I'm running down the road with the cruise on, the vibration feeling (although pretty slight now) is very constant. That said, if I go up onto a bridge or something where there's a pretty decent bouncing feeling from going from pavement to the bridge, while the car is "floating" over the bumps, for just a little bit of time while it feels like it's not as heavy on the tires, it feels 100% normal and smooth. As soon as the truck settles back down to normal riding and not bouncing from the differing road conditions, it's right back to the vibration.

    Not sure if that makes sense or helps at all.
  • I would check U-joints at this point. That means pulling the drive shafts and actually manipulating the joints.
    You can have a dry, tight joint that wont show up just reaching up and trying to move it by hand. I chased a vibration caused by one of these for several years!
    Shocks dont cause vibrations.
  • Bent wheel. It may not show up on a balancing machine unless the operator is looking. If this is a 4X4 did you also balance the front drive shaft? Bent axle tube, warped brake rotor, bad transmission mount or motor mounts. Any of those could contribute to your problem.