I just bought the truck and was failed for a left outer tie rod. With now replaced, it allow me to pass inspection, but it did not fix my death wobble problem. I was thinking of the steering stabilizer as my next step. Is there specific brands I should look at and or avoid. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

A steering stabilizer if not a fix for your problem. You have slop or movement somewhere in the steering or suspension that is the cause.

 

Track bar on front axle is the usual culprit.

 

fca has come out with redesigned steering stabilizers to fix the death wobble on wranglers. track bar play is another component to check. to check the track bar do a dry park check. has somone in vehicle turning the steering back and forth while you inspect for play at either end of the track bar bushings.
is the truck lifted?

 



 

A stabilizer will help with a front end in good shape. Since you had a bad tie rod end (I trust you replaced BOTH as the other one is the same age) I'd go for the track bar next. When I got my '01 Ram 2500 4X4, it had the wobble from a bad track bar. Several years and many miles down the road, it failed and the wobble came back. Once again, replacement cured it. I had a stabilizer as I do tend to drive in an...um...spirited manner at times. I believe I installed a Rancho unit on it and it served me well.

 

A misconception is a stabilizer is a shock sideways, which is 100% wrong. The dampener has to be designed to be used sideways, that's the difference between a $15 one and a $200 one. The piston goes into oil, when tilted on it's side it takes in sir created a frothy liquid which is wrong and doesn't work. Also the dampener should be really hard to compress so it reduces bumps. When Carli flew me out for my company that had a RAM with really bad death wobble, and installed just their dampener and it was 100% gone. I'm not saying buy Carli but do your research . Death wobble is a worn steering or suspension part and a dampener is just a bandaid.

I look at it as my truck letting me know something is bad so it didn't break on me doing 80 on the highway

 

https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...ix/1969368001/

if you believe what a company says during a lawsuit.

 

Interesting. Calling it a 'vibration' is technically accurate, but I am thinkin' FCA is SERIOUSLY downplaying the violence of the vibration. (naturally....) Saying 'it isn't a safety issue' is a flat out lie though. If your steering wheel is shaking that hard, you do NOT have control of your vehicle. For my part, if my vehicle does something that brings on the need to change my pants....... I would most certainly consider that a real problem, and not a 'minor issue' as they want to describe it.

 

Death wobble has been around for decades on Jeeps. The track bar is critical. The steering damper has been added for years too. Adding a lift, worn components, oversize tires and so on make the problem worse. The basic design goes back to the 40's and is one reason Furd went with IFS. As for it being an annoyance, I've seen Jeeps end up in the ditch or break front end parts. Other designs can get the wobble but the Jeep design has the biggest problem with it.