I give up...
 

There's no way of fixing my vibration issue. For the past 4 months I've been driving on the freeway around 65mph with a shaky steering wheel and its driving me insane! And lately the steering has been shaking while accelerating and shifting gears from 0-40mph
(btw the car is raised and not dropped)

1st - I got a wheel balance. That helped a bit.
2nd - I replaced all the worn ball joints and inner/outer tie rods.
3rd - I replaced the camber kits with stock factory ones.
4th - I got a computer alignment. That didn't help
5th - I replaced the axles with factory Oem ones.
6th - I double checked all the motor mounts and anything that is loose. NOTHING!
7th - And today I got the rotors resurfaced thinking that was the cause. NOPE!
My final conclusion, the wheel bearings are bad. Stupid car. One problem leads to another I suspect. If I change the wheel bearings and it still shakes, I'm selling the car.

Does anyone have any input on this Madness???!?!?!!

Re: I give up...
 

damn i shake a lot, too. sounds like you got it bad though. just live with it. save money and sell the car and grab something better.

Re: I give up...
 

you can tell when a wheel bearing is bad... drive the car at about 60.. turn the wheel towards the right, a little more to change lanes faster. if you feel the shaking more its your right wheel bearing.. do the same wheel turn for the left side. simply turn the steering wheel to the left to change lanes fast. if you feel it shaking more when doing it. its your left bearing. if it happens when you do it twice on both sides then i gotta say you have it bad if BOTH your bearing are going bad at the same time...

Re: I give up...
 

hrmmm.. if thats the case then its the left side because I noticed that everytime the freeway curves left.. thanks for the input I will confirm this tomorrow.

Re: I give up...
 

yea no thats not right.

if you are going left and it gets louder, its the right bearing. and if going right, its the left. think about it. while turning or merging on the freeway for ex., the weight of the car transfers opposite the way you are turning the wheel.

Re: I give up...
 

yes for sure its your wheel bearing ive had 3 cars and on every car i always changed the bearing because they were either bad or got bad after a while. i have bad luck with cars so everytime a buy a good car it always cost me a lot of money to fix it so im doing a project so everything is already new and i know if something goes bad i can pin point the problem faster

Re: I give up...
 

oh and if you change 1 bearing might as well change both in the front so the right bearing doesnt go bad in a while.. both bearing would cost you about 120 and around an hour to change both.. dont try and save money on not repairing this because the problem gets worse and a wheel can fly off while driving IVE SEEN IT HAPPEN its not a pretty site

Re: I give up...
 

another way of testing if the bearing is bad... JACK THE CAR ON BOTH SIDES grab the tire and shake it as hard as you can. if its shaking loose, then thats the bearing you need to change because your wheels aren't supposed to shake they are supposed to be stiff!!!

Re: I give up...
 

could be your steering column

Re: I give up...
 

could be the crap roads

Re: I give up...
 

Well... here's a different opinion.

My ride was shaking. It was driving me mad too!

As fate would have it, I went through a rash of flat tires -- 3 flats in a month (2 different tires) -- and finally said %@$# it, and bought new tires.

LoL! Guess what?!?!? The shaking went away -- day n' night difference!

Now get this...

A week after I replaced my tires, my wife was complaining about her ride shaking. I thought it was the axles. To make a long story short, I replaced her tires... and the shaking went away.

The tread looked fine on both vehicles, but...

Anyway, if it was me, I'd buy some new tires -- and give that a try -- before selling your ride! ;)

Re: I give up...
 

different tire sizes will make that happen but lets first change the front wheel bearing since that is the issue... i know that is the issue if its not the issue then i must really suck when it comes to cars but my guess and answer seems like it should help you... change the wheel bearing

Re: I give up...
 

i did this on my girls ride too... tires looked good (well, round wise. bald as hell though) but we replaced them and the shake went away.

Re: I give up...
 

BDC has it spot-on. I have a hunch that this is a tire-related problem.

Wheel bearings rarely cause a vibrational problem when they're bad; more often, you'll get a howling or gorwling noise that changes in volume and/or pitch as speed increases.

I would suggest swapping wheels and tires with a buddy to see if it eliminates the problem.

Re: I give up...
 

how long has it been since you've done a tire rotation? and did that affect the vibration at all?

i know on my old accord i had a habit of taking turns too fast with my poor alignment and my rear tires started cupping. when i went to do a tire rotation i got a horrible shudder/vibration in the steering wheel.

google "cupping" and see if it matches what your tires look like.

Re: I give up...
 

agreed.

Re: I give up...
 

They would't happen to be Wal-mart or Sam's club tires? Reason I am asking, is that companies like these buy the factory blems and turn around and sell them to the public at a low low price, but usually they have sidewall seperation or someother defect, that makes them faulty.

I had a set yrs ago from one of these companies. They could get them balanced in the shop, but within a week or so, they would throw weights, shake rattle and roll. I would take them back in, re-balance and repeat. Until I replaced the tires from a brand distributor, not a discount chain.

Just my .02

Re: I give up...
 

i say possible broken belt in tries

Re: I give up...
 

This is a long shot, but when you're putting the wheels back on, check that all lugs are torqued properly and the same amounts. It's quite a rarity and usually only happens during braking, but I've seen piss-poor torquing lead to some shake/vibration.

Re: I give up...
 

my front tires looks brand new and they feel and sound like i have bad wheel bearings.....time to sell them and go back to stock wheels

Re: I give up...
 

have you tried to put the front wheels on the back to see if the vibration changes?

also, i'd see if i could borrow atleast two wheels from another car for the front to see if things change.

Re: I give up...
 

lmao! that made me
laugh

Re: I give up...
 

Between the flat repairs, and replacing the tires on 2 different vehicles -- I was getting REAL chummy with the staff @ various Discount Tire stores. LoL!

A manager (at one of the stores) made an interesting comment...

I do mostly freeway driving. And, the freeways here use "rubberized asphalt".

Linkage: http://www.azdot.gov/quietroads/what...ed_asphalt.asp (ADOT - "What is Rubberized Asphalt?")

When I commented about how good the tread looked on my "shaky" tires...

He said, tread doesn't wear very much, when you're driving on "rubberized" roads. Tires die of old age these days, from sidewall flex and heat, e.g. tread separation.

I *think* he was right... :beer:

Re: I give up...
 

You probably did this already, check the hub to wheel surface that theirs no corrosion or rust between hub and wheel surface if their is clean it with a wire brush hope you find the issue

Re: I give up...
 

Wheel bearings, my car had the same problem. lol