Vibration at about 50-60mph - tie rod broke?

[brandonb]

Hi all,

I recently just got an oil change (Wednesday to be exact) at the local mechanic, and now when I go on the highway (to work and back) I'm getting some pretty noticible vibration/wobbly feeling in my car in general once hitting about 50-60mph. It's less noticible at lower speeds.

I googled and people were saying the tie rod. The car has 32k miles on it.

Now the mechanic I use has a normal hydrolic lift and raises the car to empty out the oil pan. Is it possible that the lift might have broken a tie rod or is it just coincidence?

Could it be anything else? I'm bringing my car in today to another mechanic to get an opinion but I wanted to know if it was even possible for a tie rod to break if they jacked the car up in the wrong spot.

I'm hoping that maybe just a weight came off the wheel and its not balanced correctly, but not sure how that'd fall off getting an oil change.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I would look first at the alignment / wheel balancing / broken tire belt

An lift should not have arms anywhere near a tie-rod (axle). Swing out arms go to the frame.
A tie rod could be cracked/broken; but the oil change should not have anything to do with it.
Drive on lifts are self understood.

 

[HowlerMonkey]

During the service, the technician rotated the rear tires to the front.

One of them is either out of balance or out of round...........or the rim has a slight bend on the inner lip.

 

[Howard]

Or the lug nuts are loose.

 

[brandonb]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going into the shop again and will find out the results.

 

[jaha2000]

Tie rod broken? Umm you would not be driving it if that was the case. Broken tie rod = no steering on that wheel= undrivable car..

You have an out of balance, out of round tire or a bent rim. Or the lugnuts are loose on one tire.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Possibly broke a spring/shock.

 

[Ketchup]

Not too unusual when I rotated the tires on my Mustang. Balance always fixes this for me.

 

[Phanuel]

I'm also going with dented or out of balance wheel. Had the same issue at 50+ and the dealership had dented one of my front wheels during a service.

 

[brandonb]

Ok I brought it in. They could not find any problem, and when I drove it home I took the highway and didn't notice any problems either. Not sure what's going on, but the problem of this morning and yesterday went away.

We did have alot of snow in MN over the last week, maybe it was a snow booger in my wheel well but I didn't notice that when I pulled over on the highway this morning to inspect my tire pressure (and had no flats), but I could have missed it and maybe it melted during the day while at work.

I will have to keep an eye on it.

 

[Zivic]

Ok I brought it in. They could not find any problem, and when I drove it home I took the highway and didn't notice any problems either. Not sure what's going on, but the problem of this morning and yesterday went away.

We did have alot of snow in MN over the last week, maybe it was a snow booger in my wheel well but I didn't notice that when I pulled over on the highway this morning to inspect my tire pressure (and had no flats), but I could have missed it and maybe it melted during the day while at work.

I will have to keep an eye on it.

you had snow in your wheels

 

[SyndromeOCZ]

lol snow in the wheels. Mud does it pretty terribly too, and most jackass mechanics don't clean wheels before they balance, so I always make sure I do before I take them in.

 

[iamwiz82]

For future reference, a broken tie rod is a bit more obvious

 

[HowlerMonkey]

If I were the tech and the car came back, I would have pulled it in, swapped the wheels back, and test driven it.

10 minutes later, customer satisfied............until the next service.

Next guy to work on it will repeat the cycle unless he is sharp and feels it during his test drives.

 

[phucheneh]

Ties rods do not cause vibration. They cause play in the steering, which is often unnoticeable when driving (unless your car has really tight steering and you have a really bad tie rod).

Vibration at speed is usually wheel/tire related. Second most common would be driveline vibration- typically in RWD-based vehicles, often from issues with the rear trans mount or the driveshaft. Anything else is pretty rare. Bad hub bearings can cause it, but they've gotta really be toast.

 

[slugg]

If you brought it back in, they inspected it, and then you didn't notice any more vibration, my bet is that the lug nuts that hold your wheels onto the wheel hub were torqued unevenly. Then, when they looked things over the second time and checked the torque on the lug nuts, they inadvertently evened them out.

Uneven torque can cause the wheel to wobble VERY VERY slightly. It just so happens that in your car, with your particular wheel, tire, and suspension combo, 50-60 mph causes the wheel to spin near its resonant frequency. That would explain why you only felt it in those speeds.

This is just my "gee, let me take a guess" theory. It's salty.

 

[CraigRT]

If the tires were rotated I would say the most likely cause is simply balance or a bad belt in the tire.

Bad belts are more common than I would have thought. I have had tires that have had bad belts and I have known many people who have also.