At a Loss: Vibration at Speed.

Hey all,

Early this spring I put on a StopTech ST40 big brake kit onto my GTI and was so ecstatic about it. However, ever since I put it on, there has been a vibration that comes in at 60-70 mph that just won't go away and would like to ask the community if there is anything else I can look into as I am at a loss of what it could be short of the brakes themselves. The vibration is near steady and can feel it throughout the car.

I have bought and installed hubcentric spacers (needed to clear the calipers), ensured I have a clean hub and wheel surface, had the wheels and tires balanced on a RoadForce machine, got an alignment, replaced two tires that failed the test (one had a big nail in it near the sidewall anyhow) and the vibration is still present.

Is there anything else I could look into that could fix this problem? It really is killing all the enjoyment I normally get from driving the GTI.

Lower control arm bushings. PayPal me lunch money for resolving your issue thanks lol [emoji23] [emoji51]


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What size spacers?

Never would have thought lower control arm bushings. Will take a look.

Running 5mm spacers.

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Usually spacers less than 10MM, have problems being hub centric due to it being so small and might cause vibrations. You can google it, pretty common.

Spacers can cause vibration headaches a few different ways. When I was running 5mm spacers, it was a huge ordeal getting the wheels mounted correctly, since the spacer doesn't positively locate the wheel's center bore, and tightening the lugs doesn't guarantee that the wheel is centered on the hub. It's a pain in the ass.

My car without spacers did the same thing at the same speeds. After bushings replace with superpro it drives like new car again!


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Awesome! A little more looking around has me suspicious of the LCA bushings. It just seems odd that with 67K miles that they would go. Granted its been lowered and beaten on for over half that mileage.

I'm assunung/ruling out that you cleaned the hubs before putting the spacer/wheels back on without graphite. I used to have issues (living in the rust belt) with wheels getting stuck on the hub. Then I brushed on the gray grease and no more issues, but then I noticed vibrations. So I stopped using gobs of it and just wiped on a thin coat. No vibrations anymore.

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Check your torque on the spacers