What causes my front end to shimmy after hitting a bump in the road or turning a curve at 50mph or up

check your front half shafts

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It most commonly refers to front struts, and means they have lost the shock absorption and rebound capabilities they once had. This leads to accelerated tire wear, shimmy of the front wheels, bad road-holding, and crashing of the front end on bumps.


You should replace both sides, and the strut mountings and bump stops as well.

I have a 2012 tundra and the steering wheel shimmys at 55-65mph. the truck has 15000 and never has been 4 wheeling or off roading, only used on icy roads. There are others on tundra forum reporting the same. Who else is struggling with this issue, and what is the fix..

Pitman arm and tie rod ends and bail joints.The three main causes of front end shake after hitting a bump.There's so much slop that when you hit a bump it shakes violently from one end of the slop to the other.Very dangerous!You need to get this fixed now!
Get someone to turn the steering wheel while holding onto a front wheel and just watch for stuff that moves.Turn left and right and you'll see what's the worst for wear.The connections at the steering box arm(Pitman) and at the wheels(Tie rods) will be what moves the worst.Hope this helps?Autozone has a kit for the pitman for $100,probably be $600 at a shop.

1. You might wanna take a look at your brake system, brake disk and pads.

2. The steering rack must have gone bad though it might just be the packing rubbers that are worn; or

3. The tie-rods must have been loose.

Cheers and do rate this solution.

Yep tie rod ends both control arms and a frame bushings. If you had time and could send some pictures I could be more presise and could give you a detaild ideal on how to test the entire front end, but you do not seem to want a lot of help as this would require me to give you two hours of instruction and testing parts that you are not aware of..

Haha the death wobble replace the steering dampner or shock on the lower tortion bar of the suspension with an heavy duty upgraded one. Not a difficult repair check the tortion bar bushing for play. But the death wobble is caused by the steering shock. Seen it a lot fixes it every time. Hope the info helps rate it please.

Have your front end aligned and your tires balanced.(I would try the tire balancing first)

Try greasing the Idler arm and Tie rod ends. The grease will take some of the play out and if the shimmy is gone then it's time to replace steering components. Common is the Idler and Pitmen arm that causes the shimmying.
If the shimmy is still there, then it's time for a front wheel alignment. As the suburban get's older, the suspension settles down lower each year and the geometry to the front steering system may need to be adjusted for that. On the 4X4 the ride height can be adjusted by turning the torsion bars to achieve the proper ride height again, as for the 2WD then it's going to be a coil spring replacement. 
The easy way out is to just adjust the front wheel alingment to compensate for the shimmying. ]
Good luck and hope this helps. Just make sure you find a font end person who knows what he or she is doing and not by what a machine is telling it to do. The tech must know that there must be an angel to the tie rod end so when you go over a bump you don't get what they call a bump steer where the truck will want to pull to one side.

The problem may be in the steering gearbox and can be dangerous as you noticed, get to a mechanic