I just rotated my tires after putting 7500 on them. After the first 500 miles they've been to 1 autocross event and the rest were highway miles.
Now that I have the rear tires on the front and fronts on the rear, the steering wheel shakes at 60 mph or above.

I was thinking that one of the tires may be out of balance, but the wierd thing is, the wheel shakes on the black top roads and not the regular white cement roads. I double checked the pressures and looked at the tread. Everything looks normal and the car tracks perfectly straight.
Does this still sound like an unbalanced wheel?

 

most likely the wheel balance, but also check the torques on the lug nuts.

 

Yep, look for a missing wheel weight.

 

yup yup, probably need to be balanced.

 

Thanks. I'll have someone check the balance. Probably next week (500 miles later) 'cause I'm feeling lousy with this cold I have..

 

Ahh well. Just got my wheels rebalanced at the dealer. They assured me that the wheels were balanced right on the money, but when they took it out on a road test it was still shaking. I'll say its not the wheels because they are high quality from Mugen. So I'm thinking its one of the tires that's actually screwed up. They said that their balancer is a low speed balancer (about 35 mph) and perhaps I would need to look into a shop that had a high speed balancer since I get the shakes at over 60 mph.
Not sure what I'll do.. I guess I'll live with the slight shaking until its time to rotate them again.
Maybe I'll just drive hard on them so I can get some 215/45/16 michelin pilots as soon as they wear down.

 

here is what j00 should do....

loosen the lugnuts...lift one side of the car...loosen the lugnuts even more...then retighten them...while the wheel is still in the air...tighten them to make sure they wheel is seated...drop the car down...torque the lugnuts down to specs...repeat on the other side...

what it sounds like to me is that the wheels were not seated on the hub while the wheel was up in the air....

 

Did you try switching the front tires around? Like put the left on the right, right on the left? That cured a shaking problem I had a few months back.

Your tires aren't directional are they? If they are, make sure they are spinning in the correct direction...

Cheese

 

El Pollo.. Yesterday, I had already did what you suggested thinking that the wheels didn't seat properly. But it still was shaking on the way to work. So I brought them to the dealer to get rebalanced.

Cheeseman, these tires are not unidirectional. I checked the wheels after it was rebalanced and it looks like the dealer had switched the tires around like you suggested.

Good suggestions all, but looks like they've been done..

 

If they say it's ballanced, then it is definitely a tire. I had a similar problem with my 010s pulling to one side, but when I swapped front to rear, the problem went away. At the next rotation, the problem came back. When I got my new tires, the problem went away, even with rotation.

Your tires are not unidirectional? What tires did you put on those Mugens?


[Modified by FBP_1171, 1:46 PM 6/15/2001]

 

FBP_1171.. They are Pirelli PZero's 205/45/16
My understanding of unidirectional tires are that they should rotate in one direction like the R010's .. Unless I'm getting the definition mixed up?

 

put j00r old set of wheels and tire combo back on...then you'll be able to figure out whether or not the wheel is actually causing the problem.

But it sure does sound like a balancing problem to me. Good Luck

 

I thought unidirectional tires could spin in either direction. Uni- as in universal....pretty sure thats the case.

Cheese~

 

Uni...I thought that was a synonym for "One" or one way...?? I'm confused too

 

Uni does mean ONE. For example, unicycle.