Slight Vibration in Steering

[Woollie]

Hello all,

Was just wondering if anybody could help me or had similar issues to mine? Keep in mind I am a little bit anal when it comes to this sought of thing.

Anyway, my 3 week old sv6 series2 has a slight vibration in the steering at around 90k's and above. My only mods were 20" rims and pedders sports ryder suspension. I had the wheel alignment and balance done last week by Jax because they are close to my work.

Could it be the quality of the balance that I had done (is there better ways to do this) or is it just the fact that I have 20" rims on the thing? I've never had rims this big before and wondered whether that could be a cause. Am I being a little too anal here or what? And one other thing, my steering wheel is off skew a little after the alignment.......I hate that

[Troy711]

Balance is the first thing that comes to mind. Was it there as soon as you got the alignment and balance done or is it only recent? It may have thrown a weight, you could have a crap balance or a buckled wheel. As for the alignment, does it pull to one side at all?

[Troy711]

Speaking of the steering wheel off center... The first time I drove my Stato after getting home from Baggers I notice the wheel was about 25 degrees off center. I asked the missus how long it has been like that and she had no idea. Turns out (after getting an alignment) that one side was toeing out 17 degrees an ld the other side was out about 8. You could actually see the scuff marks on the tyre where the sidewall starts to tuck under. I'll go take a pic and post it so you can see what I'm talking about (it was on my stockies).

[Troy711]

Already had a pic on my phone…

[Mitch089]

I've had the same problem with the vibration. Mine's lowered and on 20's as well. I've numerous wheel alignments and balances and it's never totally fixed it. One problem I did have was with the weights falling off the rim, so maybe check that out on your rims.

Maybe try going somewhere else? I've had some bad experiences with wheel alignments and there are some hopeless tyre places out there, so when you find a good one stick with them. I could get flamed for this but I went to pedders and they were really good so I'll be going back there again.

[Woollie]

The car isn't actually pulling to one side, it's running pretty straight. I was just a bit annoyed that they couldn't get the steering wheel straight for me, me being anal and all.

When he did the alignment he said the back left was way out which was pulling the car to the side. It is driving much better after that. As for the vibration it has been there since the wheels were put on. This is after the first balance by the guy I got the wheels off then after the Jax balance. Got me buggered. Maybe I just put up with it.

I rang Jax earlier today and they said bring it in and they will check it again and do a balance that involves taking the tyre off and doing a balance and then putting the tyre on and doing a balance.

[Woollie]

That can't be good....that's some serious scrubbing

[HUX 90]

I had the same issue my steering wheel was shaking quite badly above 90km/h, I took it for a wheel alignment, balance and rotation the problem went away, I also noticed that when the tyre pressure starts to drop the steering wheel shakes at speeds above 90km/h but not as much.

Do you have the same tyre all round, same brand and same tread pattern?

[Woollie]

Wheels & tyres are brand new. All the same all round. I probably do need to check the tyre pressure though.

[ve ss]

Same with mine. Ive got 20inch supersports brand new tyres been balanced twice. Still does it. Although ive just been on a holiday trip and i noticed it didnt shake the whole trip. it come and went all trip. Could it be possible that it could be our lovely roads that may have small divets in it that could be unnoticable to the drivers eye. All us here so far seem to have 20inch rims with low profile tyres. Low profile tyres have less flex dont they. Could be getting transfered straight to the steering wheel. Maybe. I hoping that all it is.

[The X Man]

Try to find a place that does wheel balances whilst they are still "on" the car. Some specialist wheel alignment places can do this. I had a mag on a previous car that no-one could get right (i tried 6 places) until i found a specialist who did it on the car and presto, problem fixed.

[stirringaxe]

Hey this was my experience with the balance problem on 20" mags. I had the same issue when 20" wheels & tyres where fitted.

The tyre dealer tried all sorts of things to rectify the problem to no avail. We tried different balancing machines, balancing the wheels with the finger plate into the stud holes on the balance machine, hub centre rings, tyre pressures, different set of wheels, "on car balancing" & still no joy.

They kept saying that big mags can often have these sort of issues.

After several months of mucking around I had them strip the tyres off all the rims, & run them up on the balancer, to check if they were buckled or out of round but they were fine.

I commented on the amount of balance weights on the rims & then told them to fit a different brand of tyres.

They fitted up the new tyres, balanced to 0 on fine balance straight away & hey presto problem solved for good.

[Woollie]

So it could just be the tyres then?

Thanks for the replies people. It's up at Jax as we speak so will let you all know how it goes after a good drive.

Cheers

[Woollie]

Just got the car back from Jax......looks like it's tyre hop. Now to go back to the original d**khead I bought the tyres from in the first place to see if anything can be done about it.....or of course I put up with it.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

One way to fix that is to totally deflate the tyres, break the beads, spin them 180 deg on the rim, not flip them, just spin them to a different position. Then lube the beads up really well and inflate the tyres to about 60 psi, this seats the beads properly. Then totally deflate again and inflate to the correct pressure. About 38-40 psi for a 20". See how that goes.

[Woollie]

One way to fix that is to totally deflate the tyres, break the beads, spin them 180 deg on the rim, not flip them, just spin them to a different position. Then lube the beads up really well and inflate the tyres to about 60 psi, this seats the beads properly. Then totally deflate again and inflate to the correct pressure. About 38-40 psi for a 20". See how that goes.

So would it be the tyre itself or just the way it was put on the rim? If this can be fixed I would be happy

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Sometimes tyres just have that slight up and down, but most of the time it is how they are mounted. If reseating the beads doesn't fix it, then you may have to get different tyres.

[Woollie]

After having them rebalanced yesterday they are now pretty good. I think I am happy with it now but I still sent an email to the other place to let them know that I wasn't happy. I'm sure I won't get a response anyway.

Thanks for the help guys

[Woollie]

I have an update for you all. Today I had my tyres replaced with different tyres because the vibration came back again. Took the car on the highway and guess what? Still a vibration in the steering up between 80 and 100 k's. If changing the tyres didn't help what in the hell could this be? Could it be the wheels? Surely if the wheels were out that would show up on the balancing machine right?
This is doing my head in now. Is there anything else that could be causing this vibration other than the wheels or tyres?
HELP

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Put the stock wheel back on and see what happens.

But I would still suggest that the mounting of the tyres is the problem. Also the way they are fitted to the car can cause issues too. Do each wheel up by hand in a star pattern to the specified torque, rattling the nuts up with a rattle gun can distort the brake rotor and cause vibration.

[Woollie]

The weird thing is that the vibration is at the exact same speeds as before.

What about suspension? Could that cause a vibration if not done properly?

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

It only started since the tyres were originally fitted. It has to be tyres.

[Woollie]

Well I'm now thinking it started when I had the suspension fixed. New Suspension-Issue I had an issue when the suspension was originally fitted (spring insulation wasn't fitted and it was banging over bumps) then I had it fixed by the same guy then the vibration started. I can't honestly remember if the vibration was there before this happened.

Could it be top mounts or something like that causing the problem?

[RiCeY]

Are they cheap shitty tyres? Could be out of round, jack a wheel up and spin it and look for high spots on the tread face.

[Woollie]

They certainly aren't the best tyres going around......hehehe. But 2 different sets of tyres with exactly the same problem????? Really?