high speed shake/vibration in steering/front end.
 

Hi there, from about 80kph upwards, getting pretty bad (though always driveable) around 160, my steering virates, 'seems' to go away if i'm turning.....

what could this be?

i've replaced my bushings and have balaced wheels and have had an alignment done recetnly. I do however had wear on the inside of my tires (camber problems).

your tires may have belts that have shifted. look at your tread and see if it looks 'lumpy' at all.

some front end guys don't even check your front end before they do the alignment (which your suppose to do). I would ask them if they actually did check your front end and go from there..

could this be my tie bar ends?

no, not likely. bad tie rods feel like.... a really vague steering feel, like when you point the car one way, and it slowly kinda drifts with the road even though you keep the steering wheel straight. also, if you shake the steering wheel a lil bit (engine off, key in ignition, take two fingers to grip the wheel and just wiggle it back and forth) you would notice significant play. a lil bit of play is normal b/c of universal joints and some play between the rack and pinion set.

also, with the wheels off the ground, and steering wheel locked, you could feel play in your tie rod ends.

doing a proper alignment with bad tie rods is a no-no, so i highly doubt it. Like B said.. tie rods don't really cause a shake in a wheel (but could play a part if the bj's are also worn), tie rods just give you play in your steering wheel

rotors

could it be that ur tires aren't balanced properly? i know i had the same problem and than i had my tires rebalanced and it went away?

I think it could be the tires...and would you believe it, i was running at 30psi and i'm usually at around 35 and 32 (f/r) and it seems smoother....this also started happening when it got colder and I know that the colder it is, the less volume a given about of air will take...

wheel bearing? jack up your car and see if the wheels have play in an up and down motion..

if you have cheap tires, and you oversped them... as in passed the recommended speed rating, or if you hit a pothole while going close to the speed rating, the belts would have shifted. and it's sometimes possible a balancing machine won't pick it up. you should try to find a shop that has a balancing machine that will simulate road force.

or just put your winter wheels on, or borrow your friends wheels to see if the car still does it. if it does, it could be axles, wheel bearings....

i'll check the bearings, i think my tires are z rated, so that should be fine, but i have it lots of pot wholes... it did get better today with the proper inflation, but i'll check the bearings as well.

Thanks.

could also be upper control arms too... i had this problem and when i changed my upper control arms it went away...

maybe cause your ball joint was bad:wink:

Re: high speed shake/vibration in steering/front end.
 

160 is well past the legal speed limit. plz do not speed

ok, so i changed my bearings and it improved a little, but then got worse after a tire rotation. I do need to do an alignment after a bearing change right?

However, i think the problem is that NONE of my wheels have wieghts on them! why will a shop not do a tire balance when i need an alighment done? The car does not pull at all?

^^ Where ever you had your tires balanced may have only put wheel weights on the inside of your wheel rims too keep the ugly weights out of sight.

If there are no weights at all, something is wrong cause no wheel/tire is ever 100% balanced without weights (at least I've never seen it).

You don't need an alignment after changing a wheel bearing.

If you have a camber problem and your tires are "cupped" or "feathered" they can cause this vibration.

Another thing can be your brake rotors. My brake rotors were warped very badly before I changed them recently and they were causing a vibration just driving along normally.

About rotating your tires, you should have the worst condition tires on the rear of your car and the best tires at the front since it's front wheel drive and the front tires ware down the fastest. Take a look at your tires, if the ones on the front look worse than the rears, switch em. And DON'T cross your tires side-to-side! :tsk: only front-to-back.


Hope that helps, and good luck. :)

You can balance a tire/rim without weights, you just have to keep on mounting the tires at different spots untill you get it right, no ones does this but needless to say it is possible, and it is possible for a wheel to need zero weights or very little.

And BTW, no shop would ever not proper balance a wheel to keep the "ugly" weights from showing on the outside, that's plain stupidity

I've seen wheels require one .25oz. weight and that was it for one wheel but nothing less. That would be fun re-mounting a tire over and over to get it balanced....

There is a setting on tire/wheel balancers that compensates and shows you where to mount the weights only on the inside of the wheel rim and still be balanced for those who don't want weights showing on the out side of the wheel rim. I've done it many times. :wink:

u mean sticky weights?....welcome to the 21st century