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Steering Wheel Vibrations/Car Shaking

Keml

Ready to race!
:mad0259:
Alright guys,

I have been experiencing some strong wheel vibrations at 65mph+. This was on my aftermarket Roti's. I swapped them out to my OEM wheels and the same problem occurred. I decided to see what could be wrong since I swapped out both sets of wheels and my steering wheels still shook. I pushed the car a littler harder and at 90 MPH the WHOLE car was shaking. (You can hear the center console rattling). All of my testing was done on a newly paved road, it was perfectly smooth.

I checked the CV boot and it was in great shape, it even looked brand new (It's OEM and hasn't been replaced). I was stumped. I took my car to the dealership today and had them look at it. Of course they said that there isn't anything wrong with it and they claimed to have re balanced my wheels. (I sent it in with my OEM wheels to avoid confrontation).
I took my car out tonight to test it, and it seems like the Steering wheel vibrations may have settled, but once I hit 90 MPH, the WHOLE car started shaking again.

I looked over this forum and saw some guy talking about replacing the lower control arm bushings. I looked at a BMW forum and some guy had a similar problem (His whole car would shake at 100 MPH), and everyone was telling him to replace his lower control arm bushings.

Any ideas as to what could be the problem?

Thanks for the help.
 

snobrdrdan

former GTI owner
VERY hard to tell/impossible without looking at the car.

Could be the front, could be the rear. You're gonna have to inspect it or have them do a better inspection.
Could be a bad ball joint in the front or possibly a bad bearing too, but could be the bushings too.

Again, hard to say without looking at the car
 

Squashdaddy

Go Kart Champion
I've had mild vibration in the steering wheel for some time now and everyone who has inspected related components can't find anything wrong. Recently I had the SuperPro lower control arm bracket (ALK) installed and had an alignment. I now have what I consider significant vibration in the steering wheel at speeds around 80-85mph.
 
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theunholy

Go Kart Champion
Do the wheels have Hub rings? I'm not familiar with those wheels but, most aftermarket wheels need to use Hub ring to eliminate the vibration at high speed.
 

Keml

Ready to race!
Yeah I have the proper Hun rings installed, but the thing is my wheel shakes even with the OEM wheels
 

Uberryan

Banned
Bumping this. I took a roadtrip this past weekend and noticed something similar. Alignment was done about a month or two ago, just installed new brake pads and rotors, and then installed new tires which were done a day prior to taking the trip. The steering wheel seems to vibrate when making small minor steering adjustments. At certain speeds, I feel like I need to hold or tilt the wheel constantly to the right just to stay straight. When at the mid-RPM-range, like about 3-3.5k the steering wheel seems to shudder, oddly at the bottom of the wheel mostly. This happens more so when accelerating in a high gear. Almost like it's fighting back. Not sure if this is wind related, or if the alignment is off again, but it's weird. If I go flat out max throttle and go higher into the RPM range it seems to smooth out. However, this makes for issues during quick lane corrections, as I sometimes have to over adjust to compensate for this "delay" in steering response.

I almost think I might've mucked up the alignment again since I had to dislodged a rusted brake rotor using a hammer while doing my brakes. It takes quite a bit of force though to throw off an alignment, so I'm a bit dumbfounded.
 

zrickety

The Fixer
What kind of tires did you get? It does sound like alignment. Did you use a torque wrench when you did the brakes?
 

Uberryan

Banned
What kind of tires did you get? It does sound like alignment. Did you use a torque wrench when you did the brakes?

Torque wrench? Nah. I just tightened as far as I could tighten without stripping the threads. Over-tightening could lead to other issues, and they aren't going to move at the current position. Sucks if the alignment is off again though. The tires I put on were BF Goodrich G-force comp 2s.
 

Tim Han

Ready to race!
Stop by to share my experience.

Had that steering vibration exactly from 130km/h and above for about 4 years. replaced many things. Wheels, tires, control arm bushings, checked all mounts, ball joints, brake pads, rotors, spacers, wheel bolts, hun rings, many many alignments etc. Wasted so much money and it was a total nightmare ... I almost consider getting rid of the car.

Then I met this new Mechanic told me that I have uneven wear on the tires saying it is most likely an alignment issue. He looked at my wheels closely and told me I have slight <Toe-out> setting on all corners. I was actually aware of that since my previous mechanic, did my alignment, for 4 years told me <toe-out> setting will help turn-in.

This new mech suggested me to try 0 Toe and I had him set up my alignment.
Guess what, even though I was running badly worn tires from my previous alignment set-up, the steering vibration is SIGNIFICANTLY reduced to almost none.

That was my case.
 

spiker369

on air, don't care
I had a time where my car was shaking violently at certain speeds. Turned out to be the coil packs causing really bad misfires. I also have a friend who had the same misfire issues I had but only at highway speeds. He thought he had a bent wheel but after getting new wheels it continued and he took it to VW and they told him to replace the coil packs. :iono: Worth a shot to check I suppose.
 

Uberryan

Banned
Nah, not the coilpacks. I have all red top Audi coil packs. Mine went about 5k miles ago and I got those to replace them. This vibration isn't the same as the bucking sensation from a blown coilpack. Plus I'd have softcode misfires noted in vagcom, and I don't. I might suspect the alignment if anything.
 

spiker369

on air, don't care
Nah, not the coilpacks. I have all red top Audi coil packs. Mine went about 5k miles ago and I got those to replace them. This vibration isn't the same as the bucking sensation from a blown coilpack. Plus I'd have softcode misfires noted in vagcom, and I don't. I might suspect the alignment if anything.

It was just a thought. :thumbsup:
 
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