Steering wheel and car shaking when over 100 km/h

[phatsix]

Sorry in advance if this has been mentioned before.

Ive recently put a set of 18" wheels on my VY exec. II.

I have had no dramas so far at low speed. (50-80km/h)

I recently noticed when Im going down the freeway or highway at over 100km/h, the steering wheel begins to shake to the point where its noticeable and VERY annoying!

In some spots the whole car seems to be a bit shaky and just doesnt feel right.

As soon as a go under 100 the problem stops.

Any help would be great!!!!!!

[dah_man_ben]

If you have got cheap tyres, they could be too low PSI and get lumps in them. If this is the case, pumping them up won't help now as it is too late.

I had this same problem when travelling over 90km/h with my VY when I put 17's on it which had some crap no-name brand tyres. After fitting some good Bridgestones to it, the vibration was no more.

[phatsix]

Nah no dodgey tyres i have a set of Kumho ecstas.

[VZ_SS]

Maybe a wheel alignment might help

[Verynice]

Will be your wheel balance forsure man. Head to your local tyre store and ask them to balance the front two wheels, if not all four. Wheel alignment wont make a car shake.

[TMM]

as above, sounds like the wheels need to be balanced.

[Rubber_Burnin_Gal]

wheel alignment does make a car "shudder" just by taking the off the front wheels you can knock it out of whack

if you had the tyres put on from where you bought them, they should have already balanced them????

[jazza15]

Sounds to be the same as mine, wheels are all balancd, got front rotors machined and it dulled it right down. They must have been only slightly warped, which explains why there is no brake shudder at low speeds.

[Verynice]

wheel alignment does make a car "shudder" just by taking the off the front wheels you can knock it out of whack

if you had the tyres put on from where you bought them, they should have already balanced them????

Taking off the wheels wont effect the alignment. If a wheel is put on off-center to the hub e.g not using hub location rings (which aren't needed for genuine holden mags) then it may produce a shudder. Steering angles have nothing to do with it unless bushes or steering rack etc. are rooted.

[Sean880]

Sorry in advance if this has been mentioned before.

Ive recently put a set of 18" wheels on my VY exec. II.

I have had no dramas so far at low speed. (50-80km/h)

I recently noticed when Im going down the freeway or highway at over 100km/h, the steering wheel begins to shake to the point where its noticeable and VERY annoying!

In some spots the whole car seems to be a bit shaky and just doesnt feel right.

As soon as a go under 100 the problem stops.

Any help would be great!!!!!!

=
You have had the problem since the wheels and tyres were replaced with 18 '' so the problem surely relates to the wheels and /or the tyres if nothing else on the car has been touched.

Options are:

1. You may have had a bad wheel balance job on the new wheels/tyres.

2. You could have a bad tyre with a heavy spot of the type which cannot be fully corrected with a balance job.

3. You could have a faulty wheel which is impossible to fully balance or it could be slightly warped or slightly out of round. ( Faulty wheels do occasionally get past QI as a friend of mind found out with one wheel in a new set of mags from a very reputable manufacturer). If you have cheap wheels imported from China anything is possible.


The first thing I would do is move both rear wheels to the front and test the car to see if you still have the same problem at the same speeds. IF you don't then you know what to do next.

If the problem still persists with the new 18" wheel swap around, and you still have the old wheels and tyres, refit them to the front and see if you still have the problem. If you do not then you can be pretty certain that the problem is with the new wheel and tyre set. They need to be examined carefully and re-balanced to begin with.

When fitting your wheels make sure they are properly placed on the hub and tighten the lug nuts in the correct sequence.

Some of the locking wheel nuts I have seen on the market look far too heavy to me relative to the weight of the basic lug nuts. IF you have one of these fitted on each front wheel and it is much heavier than the standard wheel nuts it must have some effect on the balance of the rotating mass at higher rotation speeds.

If you are located in Sydney I can put you in touch with a business that can help you out.

[lastlegend]

Hi

Just had a mates VY SS fixed over weekend by my Mechanic, turns out that after checking the Balancing, machined the front rotors and check for any tyre damage....it turned out to be a stuff front wheel bearing $150 later from Repco and problem gone and speeds from 0 - 140 are as smooth as silk.

[cpbait]

iv got to rebaLance my wheels, still a shudder after a disc machine which helped part of it and about 4 balances made no change even with new tyres, has a ton of stick on wheel weights on it though, there 18" rodney jane racing wheels, they were on the car when i got it, want to go back to factory holdens, a guy at works going to help me balance them, if that doesn't work wheel bearings might be a go, mine does it from about 70/80km's on wards. also veers heavily left with steering wheel cocked to the right, has had numerous alignments and still same, thinking of putting in a new rack and see how that goes.

[Benboy]

It's no good just trying to guess what the problem is. You need someone - competent - to systimatically check all components of the front suspension for wear, damage, looseness, mis-alignemt etc Any component found to be worn or faulty should be replaced. As suggested by others if the wheels and tyres were balanced prior to installing on your car (they should have been) then you can discount them as a cause. To resolve the problem(s) and ensure that yourt car is both roadworthy and safe to drive might cost quite a bit, but hey, what price safety !!

[needwork2-4fillhabbit]

Is there any camber wear on the insides of the tyres? Low profile tyres with inner camber wear shudder around 100ks.

[phatsix]

Is there any camber wear on the insides of the tyres? Low profile tyres with inner camber wear shudder around 100ks.

they wouldnt have worn out just yet? only travelled about 500k on these tyres

[Rubber_Burnin_Gal]

could be a fault with the brand of tyres, what are they?(sorry if you said and i cant remember lol) i had a blow out on a tyre that wasnt even on a week, the side wall came apart n eventually blew on me. just a thought

[phatsix]

haha no worries, pretty sure they are Kumho Ecstas.

[Rubber_Burnin_Gal]

well, try the cheapest things first............

[skynyrd]

i had the same problem on my vy ute.brand new rims & brand new 18 inch maxxis tyres.i had to take it back to bridgestone 3 times in a week for 3 wheel alignments.it used pull left,even on opposite camber,and vibrate around the 100 km mark.i ended up taking it to pedders to get a steering & suspension check to make sure nothing was bent or broken & guess what nothing was.the wheel alignment was out to the shit house & the 2 front tyres had flatspots so pedders put the fronts onthe back,and vice versa,then gave it a wheel alignment and hey presto no problem.

[sirjolly18]

Yea all this seems quite common. My 2004 VZ v6 Ute running SL springs and 18" apec racing rims and some cheap tyre (bluestreak, previous owner put them on) brand does the same thing. I had to get the front wheels aligned and balanced so went to bob Jane in Bathurst. Got told my front camber rod bushes were rooted and went to ultra tune. $340 later new bushes and a better feel up front. Got wheel aligned and now over the 80km mark the wheel vibrates a lot then when i turn it goes away. its not pulling when i brake, Brand new Front rotors and pads. wheel is straight but on a smooth road i can feel like the front is drifting a little front left to right. NOt sure but before when everything was worn it didn't do it. getting balanced again to hope this fixes the problem. Did find some of the older wheel weight had become a bit loose. might have lost a couple. Car has done 140 000km's

Oh could bad shocks be the problem?

[evotime]

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[sirjolly18]

Undo your front wheel nuts with the nuts loose you will be able to lift your wheels up and down, commodore rims from factory are centred on the spigot of the hub( hubcentric), (this is evident by the fact that if you don't lube the spigot the wheels eventually seize on to the hub)
If the wheels dont have locators (also called hub rings or hubcentric rings) to ensure they are tight on the hub they will be slightly off centre and cause the exact problems you described.
Read about it here .... How Hub Centric Rings Work - JustForWheels.com

Thanks. i have taken all the wheels of recently to paint the calipers and disks. The hub plastic spigot things are still there but since moving i could have UN-centred them? this being the case i might just need to get new ones?

[evotime]

..............

[Antsmash]

I had this same problem. My rims didn't have any center locating rings. The wheel was quite loose on the hub when it wasn't tightened. My tire guy was pretty sure this was my problem. They're currently on order

[sirjolly18]

I checked all my wheels yesterday and they all had the hub centre things. they fit the hub nice and tight but in the wheels thmesleves are a little loose. going down to bob jane and getting some new ones. if that does nto solve the problem i will rotate the rear with the front to determine if the wheel/rubber is the fault.

Also tugging on the right front wheel left and right it has a small clucking noise like something is not tight. it did it jacked up of the ground and when it was on the ground. but on the other wheel no noise at all. dads vz wagon has no noise from either wheel. It could be whats putting something out just that mill or two.