Vibration in steering wheel when in 4Auto or 4Hi

[SShadow1974]

So we got some snow last night and for the first time I drove my 2023 RAM 1500 5.7 eTorque in 4Auto. When driving in 4Auto (or 4Hi) I feel a vibration in the steering wheel that I don't feel in 2Hi. Is this normal? I don't remember feeling that in my 2016... The best way I can describe it is like the difference between a normal tire and a knobby tire. Think it's something I should get the Stealership to check out... Even knowing they're probably going to come back and say they couldn't reproduce the problem. (Man, I hate that crap.)

 

[vincentw56]

Mine is smooth as can be in both modes.

 

[DEG]

I can tell no difference between 4 wheel auto and 2 wheel drive. I've not yet tried 4H while driving down the road.

 

[stevj]

Does this vibration change with vehicle speed?
-OR-
Does this vibration change when the transmission shifts gears?
-AND-
If you cycle it in and out of 4WD, does that affect the vibration when you put it back into 4WD?

Steve

 

[SShadow1974]

Yeah, in my rather inexperienced mechanical mind, it feels like an unbalanced front drive shaft. I mostly feel it under acceleration, but like I said, really only in 4Auto/Hi. I guess I'll be off to the Stealership.

 

[SShadow1974]

Does this vibration change with vehicle speed?
-OR-
Does this vibration change when the transmission shifts gears?
-AND-
If you cycle it in and out of 4WD, does that affect the vibration when you put it back into 4WD?

Steve

Yeah, when the transmission shift, the vibration lessens and then increased with acceleration. Then lessens again when the transmission shifts again and repeat.

 

[Oldphart]

I notice a slight difference when going to 4A or 4H. I attribute this to the additional gears and shafts being used when in 4WD. When I got rid of those horrible Bridgestone OEM tires and went to Michelin Defender LTX (same size), I also noticed a small increase in noise.

 

[23RAM]

So we got some snow last night and for the first time I drove my 2023 RAM 1500 5.7 eTorque in 4Auto. When driving in 4Auto (or 4Hi) I feel a vibration in the steering wheel that I don't feel in 2Hi. Is this normal?

Not normal. When I go into 4auto I don't even notice it except for better traction in winter driving.
4hi on wet pavement you can feel a bit - on dry pavement it'll be grabby (shouldn't use 4hi on pavement unless it's slippery), and 4hi on snow or loose dirt/sand is barely noticeable except that you can feel it grabbing and pulling a bit. But not a constant vibration in the wheel.

 

[SShadow1974]

You shouldn't notice any difference between 4Auto and 4Hi. With a truck with 4Auto, the 4 wheel drive doesn't kick in unless there is slippage because the transfer case is clutch based.
Better explanation in this thread. The only setting you shouldn't drive on pavment is 4Low. In any case, I made an appointment with the stealership because I didn't think it was normal, especially since my last truck didn't do this. (And my first truck was an Outdoorsman that had a true 4x4 transfer case.)
Very Confused About Transfer Cases

 

[23RAM]

You shouldn't notice any difference between 4Auto and 4Hi.

I notice a difference between auto and hi in the rain on pavement - it "grabs" the road more when turning in hi as I would expect as the wheels are not rotating at the same speed. I typically don't use hi unless I'm in deeper snow for max traction. I don't take my spotless truck off-roading so low doesn't get used except to "exercise" it every month or so.