Recently, I noticed my friends' 1998 Montero Sport had pretty poor tires. The fronts were VERY worn, but the rears still had a little more tread on them so I decided it was safer to have the better tires up front. (It's a young woman, and she doesn't do cars. lol) After I got done moving the fronts to the rear and the rears to the front, it had this bad shake in the steering. It's constant, too as in an extremely bad wheel imbalance.

During the course of moving the wheels around, I removed the two remaining trim rings from the wheels on the right side because I just thought it looked dumb having them on only one side. So I thought I may have imbalanced the two wheels on that side by doing so and that may have been what caused the shaking. A few days ago it got a lot worse and I noticed one of the tires I moved to the front developed a huge bubble and is probably wanting to blow, soon so I have to get a spare on there asap!

The only other thing that really worried me was that I jacked the thing up by a bar that crosses under the center of the motor because I was changing the oil, too! Well, it bent the bar. I'm afraid that I may find out that this bar, which appears to connect right under the left and right suspension, may have been crucial to the vehicles alignment and that I may have messed it up. I hope not! That's what I really want to know. I only fear this is what it is because I didn't notice any imbalance before I swapped the wheels... unless, removing the trim rings really could cause such a bad imbalance. ?_?

Any feedback is appreciated!

 

I think you definitely damaged the front stabilizer bar. Why would you jack up the car at that location? You should jack up on the frame unless its a unibody. Always check the owners manual for the proper jack location. The trim rings will not cause a wheel imbalance. Sounds like you need 4 new tires with balancing and a full alignment.

 

I forgot to update this! Actually, the other day we went and replaced that tire with the bulge and there is no more steering shake or vibration. I looked under the car where I jacked it up and it ends up the big brace between both suspension setups just as a formation in it that I thought was a bend of my doing. Everything is fine. now.

I drove the thing to my shop when I swapped the tires and I just can't believe that I couldn't feel the vibration from this tire when it was on the rear. That is so odd!

 

Glad everything worked out without any damage.