Washboard Roads - Am I screwing up my truck?

2018 TRD OR DCSB, totally stock.

Lately I've been driving a fair deal on some washboard roads, maximum 3 miles in a stretch. My intuition is to go about 35 MPH, that seems to smooth things out as far as ride quality. Much less vertical bouncing at that speed, but still tons of small omnidirectional shaking. My Taco eats it up far better than any other vehicle I've owned/driven, but I gotta wonder what all that rattling is going to do to my truck long-term. Been watching a few videos and reading some other posts, but I just wanted to get all your thoughts.

I'm open to airing down my tires if I really need to, and possibly upgrading my suspension if it comes to that.

Hypothetically, if all that corrugated road rattling were to cause problems, what signs should I be looking for?

 

I live in an area with the same conditions. You are wise to be concerned, because all mechanical systems have their limits.

My advice:

-Do air down on washboard: I usually run about 23 PSI on 265/70/17 C-rated. Not crazy low, but huge difference and takes the rattle out. You can still make a jaunt on pavement at that pressure.

-Trust your gut: If you feel like you are shaking the truck apart, in some way, you likely are. Slow down a bit and enjoy the scenery.

-Do your inspections: If you run washboard, check you lug nuts, your cab mounts, you shock and strut bolts periodically. I have loosened off a cab mount bolt once, and have had to re-torque my wheel nuts a couple times.

-Replace your shocks with larger diameter: after an hour on washboard, the oil in the stock OEM OR shocks has turned to foam and they are doing nothing, especially in the rear. If you haven’t already, upgrade to something of a larger diameter. 5100s are relatively inexpensive and worked wonders for me. Remote reservoir shocks are a good idea as well for guys with deeper pockets.

- Have fun and don’t stress too much: Drive the gnarly roads!!!! Life is too short not to abuse your Taco a little to drive it where you want to go, and use it as intended “off road”

 

3 miles doesn't seem like enough to cause suspension damage on the offroad shock. Sustained long miles on that type of washboard could be concerning though as heat builds up.

EDIT: That being said, why not get a nice set of remote resi shocks and slay dirt roads all day !

 

Talking about long term....... depending on how hard you run your truck and how many cumulative dirt miles you collect, you'll start to have sheet metal fail, most of the failures will start to take place on the front in the wheel wells and around the engine bay. You will likely need a couple thousand miles of dirt before you start seeing the cracks form. I'm not exaggerating about the "thousands" of dirt miles either, most other trucks I see with this amount of cracking have 150,000+ miles......my 2013 has less than 80,000miles

I have friends that have third gens that have the same cracking starting at 30,000miles under the headlights, so 3rd gens aren't immune.

And since I know someone is going to bring it up.......Drilling the cracks out doesn't stop them.

Airing down will definitely help reduce vibration transferred to the chassis.

Upgrading the suspension probably wont help, If you upgrade/change your suspension it'll likely just cause you to drive faster and more aggressively. (unless you have super human discipline )


Here's a crack on my bed side mounting bolts, I had them on both sides until I welded the crack and added a welded a washer to the mounting hole.


Here's some cracks on the sheet metal around the headlight areas.




If you drill any holes in the front end sheet metal, over time they will likely lead to cracks forming at the holes and propagating outwards


Next set are photos of the progression of cracks in the sheet metal under my driverside headlight, eventually I plated the area with 14 gauge around a year ago and it seems to have stopped the cracks. The passenger side also had cracking, but not as bad. The battery being mounted on the driver side exacerbates the cracking. Funny enough, the crack actually made its way to a hole already in the sheet metal and continued to crack its way through the sheet metal....yeah....drilling the end of the crack doesn't stop this crap.



Passenger side



If you have a double cab and you get shit load of dirt miles, you'll likely eventually get cracks that come up through the door frame. It takes A LOT of dirt miles and abuse to get these cracks, most folks won't ever get to this point before they sell their truck

 

You can leave the 3rd Gen vs 2nd Gen BS at the door. Real men know the 3rd Gen is a much tougher truck.

The rest of the info seems about right for a 2nd gen.

 

Good info, glad I'm getting my kings soon...

 

if you can, straddle the road. the washboard shouldnt go all the way across, tho ive seen it do so. I travel alot of logging roads, and i can usually straddle the road and stay on the part in the middle and on the shoulder for a smooth ride.

 

If you read the article and watch the video a simple dirt road 11 miles in @ 30-35 mph can completely destroy stock suspension on the tacoma. Now three miles may not blow up or melt stock covers but I believe 3 miles could; 1. deteriorate the oil with excessive heat and molecule break down leading to shorter life, 2. heat could cause the oil to aerate and cavitate leading to bottoming out shock damaging shock seals or other suspension components.

https://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/...yota-tacoma-trd-off-road-comparison-test.html

Edit: I will say I do have fox 2.5 w/RR coilovers and fox 2.0 W/RR rears and went through big bend a year ago at 25-30 mph felt like my truck was falling apart. A few stretches of road leaving the park I hit 60-65 mph for about 2 miles it felt like riding on a cloud it was amazing and yes stupid so don't tell me how not to have fun.

 

I will go way out of my way to avoid washboard. Thank God the washboard phenomenon isn't prevalent in these parts.
As mentioned, if it feels like your truck is getting beaten on, it is.

 

My desert is FULL of washboard roads. The old timers go slow. Their cars are 30 years old and run fine. The tards go 30 or 35 to smooth out the ride...

The vibration of washboard roads is trying to unscrew every threaded fastener in your vehicle! Further, as you zoom rapidly over these hard ripples, your suspension, wheels, shocks, axles, drive shaft are violently driven up and down, so that the chassis can travel smoothly. Just watch someone else's wheels in these conditions.

This is why I don't go over about 15mph on dirt roads. My attitude is, go slow enough not to overstress anything, even if the ride is harder on me. My trucks tend to last forever.

 

Gotcha. Thanks for the info, guys. I'll just start slowing the fuck down! I really don't care about a few more minutes of travel time, if I can save my Taco from unnecessary damage. Luckily I've only been doing that for a few days, so I'm not too worried.

Okay, riddle me this. How much is a good set of remote reservoir shocks? (Not that I have the budget; there are other, simpler things I'd like to mod first.)

 

You could do the bilstein 6112/5160 combo for for around $1100 if you installed yourself - it would net you a slightly larger than 2.5" shock up front, and remote reservoirs in the rear - probably the cheapest way to go about it

Also gives you a 18mm rod vs 14mm in a 5100, so a bit sturdier to take a beating

 

Well, this is disappointing. Thanks for posting. What level of use or abuse results in these sheet metal cracks? You said, 1000's of miles of dirt roads. Does that mean driving at normal speeds over washboard or driving slowly on dirt roads, or going full bore all the time off-road? Any vehicle will suffer increased wear and tear if it's driven off road. But to what degree?

 

Please... I get that you are being "tongue in cheek" but comments like this are what give the 3rd gen crowd a bad rap . 3rd gens are just as likely to sustain stress damage as 2nd gens since they share many of the same body components. We should all aim at being one big happy TW family and stop pitting one "gen" against another.

 

Washboard is a funny surface to drive on, every truck and every person will have their own preference of speed and tire PSI on how to smooth it out. Driving slow is one option, but if you're doing a long distance route through, say Death Valley, driving 5 MPH may not be an option if you've got 50+ miles of dirt between one camp site and another.

I basically do everything in that truck and go all over the southwest on camping trips. Death Valley washboard, Utah back country sand and clay tracks, High sierra rock crawling, decaying volcanic hills in the Socal & Arizona deserts, and high altitude alpine routes out in Colorado.

I basically drive as fast as I can safely drive once I'm off pavement. And by that I mean, as long as the terrain is open and I have good visibility and I can see if anyone is coming in the distance, its "game on" time. If I have limited visibility like on blind hills or corners I'll chill out and slow down on approach.

That damage is on a 2013 truck with around 80,000miles. I haven't counted all the dirt miles its accumulated, but if I had to guess, last year it probably collected 1500-2500 miles of dirt under it. Total miles of dirt under it would easily be more than 5,000.

 

I dont have a Taco. I own an 05 fourtunner but I guarantee if you put it in 4wd it will smooth out the washboard a lot.