carnot

1995 Honda Prelude SE, stock suspension, new shocks, 2 year old bushings all around, alignment good.

I am getting a vibration in the steering when letting off the gas at highway speeds (60+ MPH). When this happens I am not pressing on the brakes just not on the gas. I am thinking potentially motor mounts or axles. Anyone had a similar problem?

I don't think it is wheel/tire related because my wheels are new and were road force balanced a week ago. I don't think it is disc rotors b/c it happens even when I am not pressing the brakes. Let me know what you guys think and suggestions on tests to try and pinpoint the problem. Thanks for any feedback.

typemismatch

Visually inspect the motor mounts, they have rubber bushings in them. If the bushings are broken the motor will shake.

If its motor mounts it should shake the same sitting at idle or on the highway at idle.

carnot

The vibration is not noticeable at idle (highway or sitting still). The vibration is most noticeable at highway speeds, in gear, and off the gas. I've checked the motor mounts and they look OK to me. Thanks for the response.

typemismatch

When were the timing and balancer belts last done?

Is it possible you don't have a balance shaft belt?

carnot

Timing belt was done about 20k miles ago. The balance shafts have been deleted.

Update from my drive to work this morning: Vibration occurs whether I am in gear or not. Whether I press the brakes or not does not seem to make a difference but I do notice that I get more severe vibration only between 35-40mph while pressing the brake. Above that speed or below that speed pressing the brake has no influence on the vibration.

I have checked the rotor runout and it is within spec. I also checked the wheel bearing end play and I did not measure any. Thank you for any suggestions. I am kinda leaning towards swapping the axles out to see if that changes anything. The axles are fairly new; I bought the level 0 axles from the driveshaft shop less than a year ago. I wouldn't think they are the problem since this are well respected for their quality but it is a fairly easy A/B test to try. What do you all think.

typemismatch

Balance shaft delete will cause vibration from the motor.

Mine are deleted in both my Prelude and my H2b, the 'lude is most noticeable at idle and at around 3K rpms. My H2b rattles like crazy everywhere, but that's the car in general, not just the b/s delete.

This is normal.

mherkamp

Tie rod ends

minilogoguy18

It's wheel and tire related, don't know why you force balanced them, that's only needed under certain circumstances from cheap tires, cheap wheels or bent rim. If you got no play in the hub assemblies then get the wheels rebalanced, they probably didn't do a good job and if you have any of the 3 things I said above then balancing will probably never make it better.

Cheap thing you can do is rotate the tires and see if it changes, will tell you for sure if it's wheel/tire related.

carnot

Discount Tire did a road force balance after they did a normal balance and rotation and it did not change the problem. They found 1 bent wheel during the road force balance so I have new wheels. The tires are Toyo Proxes 4 with less than 10k miles on them.

minilogoguy18

So they balanced your old wheels, then forced balanced them, found 1 bent, you bought new wheels which they mounted and balanced 4 new tires on? I'd still rotate what's on there now, if you're saying this right then they only force balanced the old set which are no longer on the car. I do this daily and trust me, while it's stupidly simple someone could still mess it up, seen it.

You also didn't say what wheels are on the car, cheap wheels never balance out right, I run from every car at work that has aftermarket wheels unless they are something made by a highly reputable company like volk, advan, etc. Rota are the only budget wheels I've never had a problem with which is a good thing considering they're popular and inexpensive.

Dunno about the Proxies but the very common Versado's are junk and always have problems which is another line of Toyo tires.

carnot

This is correct except the tires are the same from the original set of wheels (Proxes 4 I bought new about 1 year ago and have <10k on them). Thank you for the suggestion about having the balance checked again; I will give this a try.

The wheels I got were these MB wheels:

http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/fin...6083&rc=NCRINT

We are talking about wheels and tires but what are the other possible sources of the vibration?
-alignment is good
-steering rack and tie rods are <6 months old
-all new energy suspension bushings <5 years old
-new oem shocks <6 months
-stage 0 half shafts from drive shaft shop <1 year old
-wheel bearings original as far as I know (measured 0 end play)

I will get the balance checked again today and report back. Thanks for the input.

minilogoguy18

Only other thing I'd suggest is CV joint play but usually you feel vibration from that on acceleration and not deceleration as I'm having that issue atm, just too broke to buy an axle and I know that the side with the half shaft isn't likely of popping off the half shaft.

razorlude

experienced something like this before.found driveshaft's end (gearbox side) locking ring worn and popped out.

carnot

Problem resolved and just wanted to put this in the thread in case someone else has a similar problem. I got a new set of tires and the vibration went away. I think in the future I am going to stay away from Toyo tires and also try to get non-directional if I can.

minilogoguy18

I have Falken FK452's and no problems, I balance them myself at work and they require next to no weights to balance, they're mounted on Rota's. They're directional but the main thing I notice with people and directional tires is that they wear 1 side out faster like on most Honda's the 2 tires on the passenger side will wear faster because that's the side that the open diff drives.

roberts si

So here is my problem....my engine has a pulsing vibration at idle in park or any gear. Also while driving...anyone have any idea what would cause this??