Hey guys. First of all, I searched the archives and couldn't find a thread that fit my specific issues. I have a 99 Civic LX. At low speeds, my steering wheel wiggles, and the car itself shakes laterally. It doesn't quite swerve from side to side, but there is definitely a back and forth motion that is very perceptible at lower speeds (5-15 mph). I read several threads about loose steering wheels, shaking steering wheels, and other vibrational issues, but none of those dealt with the car actually "wiggling" laterally. I'm not sure whether the problem lies with unbalanced tires, an unaligned front end, damaged tie rod ends, or something else. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Could be any thing really until you get the time to look at it. Could be bad aligment or if ur car is slammed bad chamber can expletive ur tires up. Just hope its not wheel bearings cause those are annoying to replace?

Did you hit a curb at any time before it started this?

 

Nope. I didn't hit anything that would've caused this to happen. I've been teaching my wife how to drive a standard on my civic, and she admitted to being a little rough on it when driving to pick my drunk *** up from a UFC party, but I don't know if her putting my transmission through hell would've messed up the steering.

 

replace your drive axles.

 

Yeah you really need to look at it. If its the axels roll ur window down and try to listen if theres a clicking sound if so ur axels could be bad, also jack the car up and look to see the axels might have a broke CV joint, they will be execess grease on the boot or around it.

 

The CV joints look fine. I took some photos, but I'm not sure how to post them. But I couldn't see any grease on or around the boots.

 

How new/used are your tires? You might have a bad tire or two. As in the tread is separating, which can happen even if you seem to have plenty of tread left.
Simplest way to check is simply slap the spare on one side at a time and see if that fixes anything.

 

Gotcha. A buddy of mine is storing a spare set of '95 Del Sol tires in my basement. I'll give those a try and see if it fixes the problem.

 

are your tires balanced? Some shops are too shady to take time balance a wheel.


Modified by Spoon_Fed_EM1 at 2:01 PM 3/19/2006

 

a balance issue is normally prominent at speeds higher than 5-15mph. i would look at front end components- ball joints, inner and outer tie rods or a bent wheel.

 

Djaric nailed it. I swapped the tires out with tires off a '94 Del Sol (not a '95, as posted earlier).

 

maybe a bubble in one of the tires?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tom_zeke &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Djaric nailed it. I swapped the tires out with tires off a '94 Del Sol (not a '95, as posted earlier). </TD></TR></TABLE>

Was there a lot of wear on the inside of the tire?

 

Nope. The tires are pretty old, though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tom_zeke &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Nope. The tires are pretty old, though.</TD></TR></TABLE>


My girlfriends car recently did this, and Ive had it happen before. Its the weirdest feeling. lol