tire noise

I have a '96 with 64,000 miles that I purchased 1 year ago (so I don't know the history fully of the vehicle) and I am experiencing some pretty violent shaking on the highway between 55mph to 65mph. As I said, I don't know the info on the tires but I know that they seem to be pretty old. My tires pressure is correct. The alignment on the vehicle seems to be pretty good. I am thinking that I need to get my tires balanced? Any opinions or suggestions?

Also, there seems to be some front end noise at lower speeds 25 - 55mph? I put the front tires up and moved them and cannot detect any play in the bearing/hub assembly. I think I'm just going to get the wheels rotated and then balanced and seem if that calms everything down. Any suggestions and comments are appreciated. I'm new to Jeep owning and believe that tire noise itself is always going to be there just because this is a Jeep...no fancy luxury car.

Thanks.

You are experiencing what is "affectionately" known as the death wobble. You can search the forums on this and get lot's of hits. How long has it been doing this? Have you made any changes since you bought it? Is it lifted? Does it have larger than stock tires?

There can be many causes:

Tires worn or out of balance.

Bad steering damper (this was the source of mine)

Loose steering linkage (either in the linkage itself or steering box)

Bad alignment

etc, etc.

I'm sure many others will chime in.

Thanks for the info. I have heard about this death wobble but did not fully understand it was referring to that. I would not really consider it really bad. I would just say that I know the way the Jeep has felt over the past 11 months. I have not put a lift or anything like that on it. The tires are 225's which are larger than the common but I do not think it's considered oversized.

I have put 10,000 miles on it since August (it's my 2nd car...drive too many highway miles to work). I have not done anything with the tires other than make sure pressure is adequate. I think a good test would be to rotate them diagonally and see what it feels like.

Thanks for enlighening me about the death wobble.