hello

my car vibrates at highway speeds above 70mph and i have no idea what it is. the steering wheel shuffles ever so slightly from left to right and i can feel the car vibrating (even the coins in my ashtray make noise).

i thought it was a wheel balancing issue, so i had the fronts rebalanced, but the problem is still there. the treads on the tire look fine, and the car drives pretty straight.

Could this be an alignment issue even tho my car doesnt pull to either side? Anyone with any insight would be appreciated.

***oh yea, the car is completely stock.


Modified by da1lydr1ver at 12:24 PM 10/23/2008

 

How many miles do you have on the car? Sounds like your motor mounts are shot, or you have an alignment issue.

Do you hear any whining noise, or like "bum-bum-bum" noise as you're driving?

 

alliginment bro, same **** happend to me, after 60 it would shake the ***** off, came to the point i kept driving like that and it got worse and worse where i couldnt go past 40, new alignment and your good

 

it might be a few things wrong with your front end suspension. tie rods, wheel bearings come to mind. may be even the lower ball joint. if you know what you're looking for you can check for your self, if not get someone else to look at your front end suspension. oh, and yea, might also just be your alignment.

 

i had the same problem i got rims and got brand new tires on them and got them all balanced all came out to zero and it shook like yours so i got an alignment and it didnt fix the problem someone said its the rim like the rim is out of balanced like it may be alittle bent something that you wont notice but can make it shake that bad it also could be the things above as well this is just the reason why mine shook..

 

get ur wheels balanced..

 

Thanks everyone for your responses.

actually, my car is a 2002 civic EX, but i decided to post in here since theres more traffic and it seems that more people here are knowledgable

my car only has 56,000 miles on it. it doesnt make any noises when i'm driving down the road or anything. i guess i'll get my alignment redone since the place i got it done guarantees it for 1 year. if that doesnt work, then i'll go down the list and get my tie rods and wheel bearings, etc checked.

about a week ago, i jacked up the front of my car and took a look around. visually the upper tie rods (the ones connected to the struts for steering) looked fine, no leaks or anything. then i grabbed the front wheels and tried to move it side to side and up and down. there was NO PLAY when i did this.

i've read before that if i had a side to side movement, it was tie rods, and if i had up and down movement, it was wheel bearings (can someone confirm)? since i had neither, is it safe to rule them out???

thanks again.

 

Have you ever filled one of your tires with fix-a-flat?
Perhaps a previous owner did?
How old are the tires?
Even if the tread is good, they can get flatspots if they sit for a season, or just be junk after a while.

Do you have a spare set of wheels/tires to borrow to try?

If all the suspension looks good, and i assume it does, because you had it aligned.
And usually an alignment shop will point it out and quote you if there is something wrong.
I know if it was my shop, I would be happy to quote any suspension problems I saw. I'm sure you explained the issue to them.

 

check the bolts on the ball joints or the ball joints them selves. my buddy had one actually fall out and he went for a ride.

 

my tires are fairly new, about 2-3 years. the car doesnt sit for long periods since its my daily driver. i'm the first owner of the car, so i know for a fact that Fix-A-Flat was never used on my tires/rims.

i just may have to throw on some steelies to test out the car again and see if the shaking persists...

i hope the alignment shop people didnt get lazy and not point out any problems to me

 

yep, check your wheels, tires, alignment, axles.