Postby TESTED performance » March 26th, 2007, 5:26 am
well i guess you guys about covered it. ..
slack axles can cause vibrations so pull off the front wheels and tighten them up
bent axles can also cause it but that is a RARE problem
one that i didnt hear mentioned is warped rotors. yep alot of the time if the rotor is warped badly enough you find that the brake pad brushes the rotor intermittently and at moderate speeds it can be bad enough to feed a small vibration back into the steering column.
as Chiney, said, it doesnt always have to be a tire with warped steel belts even though that is a common cause of vibration. if the tires wear unevenly meaning the inner tire is significantly more worn than the outside or vice versa it will cause vibrations at highway speeds.
if the alignment is off badly enough it can also cause vibration so check it.
all speed balancing technicians ARE NOT made equal. if you speed balance at one shop and u still have problems try another shop and see if they get it right.
Bent rims are another notorious cause of steering vibration. i can only recommend places around San Fernando that fix mag wheels. if you dont have mags it should be easier to change the offending wheel or get it fixed.
before loading up the wheel with upwards of $30 of weights try this lil trick. have your tire man deflate the tire on the offending wheel and rotate the tire exactly 180 degrees on the rim and then reinflate and speed balance. sometimes an imperfection in the tire doubled with a rim defect can be cancelled out by putting the two at odds with each other thus saving you the consumer a few extra dollars in balance weights.
and last but by no means least. make sure that the weights haven’t fallen off after a few days of driving. If you had the same vibration problem right out of the shop its likely to be one of the other problems but from time to time those stuck on weights do take a leave of absence from your wheels so have them checked.
finally i think its worth mentioning that 95% of road vibration is caused by faulty tires or rims.