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YACT: Steering wheel still shakes.

P

polm

Diamond Member
I've always been good about getting Balance and Rotation every 6K miles (every other oil change). I just had an alignment job done a couple months ago.

The tires are only a couple years old, and the tread looks fine. Tire pressure is consistent, as well.

Why does my steering wheel still shake at certain speeds? Basically at 30 - 60 MPH I have a continual shake to my steering wheel.
 
Check for a tire being "out of round." Basically, jack up the car so the wheel can spin and spin it. You can put a stick, level, ruler very close to the tire as a guide. What you are looking for is a tire that is basically egg shaped or not perfectly round. If you do find one, have it remounted and balanced. Should take care of it.
 
suspension problem. Worn tie rods, ball joints, control arms or even thrust rods could be the problem or if your really lucky it is a combination of a few of those.

 
Originally posted by: MedicBob
Check for a tire being "out of round." Basically, jack up the car so the wheel can spin and spin it. You can put a stick, level, ruler very close to the tire as a guide. What you are looking for is a tire that is basically egg shaped or not perfectly round. If you do find one, have it remounted and balanced. Should take care of it.
Click to expand...

Unless you've done a "female panic stop" in a car with no ABS (flatspotting the tires)

- M4H
 
Damn...sounds like a lot of potential causes. Guess I'm taking the ol' clunker back to the shop.
 
Alignment will not cause a steering wheel shake 😛
Loose parts such as bearings, tie rods, rack and pinion, hub caps, and even fix a flat (yes the crap in a can).

If all your front end parts are tight and you have the shake without your hub cap on, or dont have one, I would ask if you have ever used fix a flat. The liquid itself will throw a balance off because it stays as a liquid in your tire if you use enough of it. It will give you a shake and the wheel will become unbalanceable. To a untrained tire tech they may pass it off as machine error and throw it back on your car. If it goes on the machine and it keeps asking for weight all over the place at random its a sign of liquid in the tire. It needs to be taken off the rim, the liquid removed, and the hole patched properly.

Liquid in a tire while driving:
It may give you a shake at certain speeds, at those speeds it may come and go, some times coming and going at time hardly noticeable then massively shaking slowly fading away, shaking slightly, then going away, then massive again. Its the liquid in the tire and depending how much of it at one time comes together in one spot determines the severity of the shake and at what speed your going. If that is your shake, its fix a flat in your tire. If not then its worn out front end parts or bad wheel balancing.

Unless this shake is happening when you apply the brakes, if that be the case then is your rotors/brakes/lose tire rods/worn rack and pinion and NOT a wheel balance problem.
 
funboy42: I've never used the fix-a-flat stuff. And my car doesn't have hubcaps. There is no shake when I apply the brakes, just when I'm traveling at speeds between 30 - 60 MPH.

richardycc: It's a 1997 Mitsu Montero Sport.
 
Where did you take it for the alignment and tire balance? How long has it been shaking on you and does it do it on the same road?

I ask about the road because roads are all not built the same. There is one by my house that at 70 mph give my car and my wifes a wicked shake in the wheel, but our cars are tight and it only does that on that one stretch of new highway.

Just trying to see if indeed its a car problem. Most shops will do a very through check over of a car before doing an alignment. You cannot align a car with worn out parts and for a shop thats where the real money is, not in the alignment, so finding a lose part and not bringing it to your attention wouldn't not be in their best interest. So that can rule out lose front end parts I mentioned earlier.

It would have to end up being bad tires, balance, or just road.

If it is road no ammount of what ever to your car is going to fix a bad asphalt or concrete job and your going to have to live with the shake in the wheel. Just be happy its nothing major and the front ends going to come apart at those speeds 😉
 
funboy42 know his stuff. Bad tires could be a broken belt or belts. Tough to diagnose. You have to actually swap one tire at a time and drive the car. And as he alluded to, just because they've been balanced, that doesn't mean it's been done right.

Another thing folks don't think about is water freezing on the wheels. The inboard surface of the wheels are designed to shed water, but if it's cold enough it will freeze and throw that wheel out of balance. You can probably figure out the cure for this. For all I know, you live in Hawaii. 🙂
 
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