I have an intermittent problem just come up in my 96 civic sedan two weeks ago.
Driving on the interstate, the front of the car started shaking which I could feel in the steering wheel. After slowing down, it went away and the car drove fine. A few miles later it did the same, violent shaking. I had the car towed. Got the car home, problem was gone.

Had my car up on my brothers lift, found the inner drivers tie rod has some play as well as the pass side upper ball joint.

I replaced the upper ball joints, lower ball joints, inner and outer tie rods, and steering rack boots on both sides of the car.

For 10 miles the car drove like a champ thought I fixed the problem, nope.

Now this is what the car does.
When driving for example 30 mph, I let off the gas and the wheel twitches to the right. Sometimes this twitch just keeps on going and the wheel turns right and left. If it keeps going until I stop, the wheels twitches get slower with the speed but the steering wheel moves more as the speed drops until I stop. While it its either twitching or shaking until I stop, the car pulls to the right. When it is not doing it, the car will not pull to the right.

Sometimes I can get it to do this when letting off the gas and I get one big twitch in the steering wheel when I hit the gas again. Sometimes it will not do it at all. Sometimes I can get it to do it when starting from a stop. Pressing the brake has no effect on the problem, or does using the parking brake. I just noticed today that sometimes making a hard turn and accelerating there is 1 or 2 "clunks" which I can feel in the steering wheel and whole car. This only happens sometimes, I didn’t notice this before I replaced the parts but I had the car towed, so it may have been there before.

When I had the knuckle off changing the ball joint, the wheel bearings were ok. The drive shafts have no tears in the boots. The steering rack made no abnormal noise and seems ok and has no slop.

The front pass side tire has a bubble but I don’t feel this has anything to do with my problem. The front isn’t aligned perfectly yet because I just changed the tie rods. It hardly pulls and since the problem is intermittent I don’t think the alignment is the problem. I will be getting an alignment tomorrow anyway, because I just changed all those parts.


Any help would be great. Sorry for the long post, I just thought I would add every piece of info I could so maybe it’s easier for someone to help.

Thanks in advance.

 

A bubble in the tread is very likely to be the cause. And, it's dangerous, seriously. Put the spare on now (I mean before you drive the car again).

I was thinking CV joint until you said "bubble"...

 

I understand the tire needs to be replaced. I still feel the tire isnt the probem because the problem goes away and comes back. The bubble in the tire was from when i hit a huge pot hole. 2weeks later i am having these problems. btw the bubble is on the sidewall, not sure if you thought it was in the tread somewhere.

I will replace the tire, but i stil feel there is another issue causing the problems i am having.

you said something about a cv joint, could you go into more detail please?

thanks.

 

*wheel bearing? maybe....seems like the wheel bearing would be a constant shake versus intermittent......

*brake caliper seizing up?

 

not aligning the car after changing tie rods is a good reason for the problem... what do you expect? you have no idea where the alignment is anymore.

and a bubble in the tire is unacceptable. replace immediately.

if you hit a pothole hard enough it damaged the tires, other parts of the suspension are suspect.

you need an alignment. you wont know more until you do.

 

You may be right, the tyre may not be the cause, but you have a known defective part (tyre) with the sort of defect that is known to cause a steering wobble / vibration (bubble, whether in the tread or sidewall). Replace that first (or as a diagnostic only rotate it to the back), then if you still have a vibration you'll know it wasn't the tyre.

Otherwise, what is not unlikely to happen is that you'll try all sorts of things and spend money uneccesarily (though it does sound like you have fixed some stuff that did need fixing), and in the end it will turn out to be the tyre (wierder things happen). You need the alignment done as well.

 

thanks guys, the tire and alignment will be done over the weekend. I will update the thread after that.

I still think there is something else that has failed. The tire or alignment does not explain an intermittant problem or "clunking" when making turns sometimes.


thanks for the help so far, I really hope it can be resolved soon.

 

Clunking in all probabilty = CV joint.

I've had a tyre bubble that caused an intermittent vibration, but it wasn't random, more speed related, i.e. at low speeds it was obvious but disappeared at higher speeds.