Vibration in steering wheel

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TonyLS

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Got the tires rotated and balanced at NTB about three months ago. I noticed a vibration on the wheel when travelling ~65 or faster. Brought the car back for them to rebalance, they said that the balance was slightly off on the front. Now when bringing the car up to ~75mph I feel a small vibration on the steering wheel. Whats strange is that the severity of the vibration changes at different times when traveling at the same speed.

Is this car that difficult to balance? Has anyone else gone through a similar situation?

I'm still thinking that it's a balancing problem of some sort. I don't believe alignment is an issue here. It was aligned 11 months ago and I don't see any abnormal tire wear that would indicate alignment.

When I had the tires rotated and balanced 9 months back, I went through the same thing. NTB needed to balance them twice before they got it right.
 
TonyLS said:
Got the tires rotated and balanced at NTB about three months ago. I noticed a vibration on the wheel when travelling ~65 or faster. Brought the car back for them to rebalance, they said that the balance was slightly off on the front. Now when bringing the car up to ~75mph I feel a small vibration on the steering wheel. Whats strange is that the severity of the vibration changes at different times when traveling at the same speed.

Is this car that difficult to balance? Has anyone else gone through a similar situation?

I'm still thinking that it's a balancing problem of some sort. I don't believe alignment is an issue here. It was aligned 11 months ago and I don't see any abnormal tire wear that would indicate alignment.

When I had the tires rotated and balanced 9 months back, I went through the same thing. NTB needed to balance them twice before they got it right.
Click to expand...

Go to a different Tire dealer... It may cost you $20-25 dollars to get a second opinion...
 
There is literature at Ford regarding what they call "tire nibble" on these cars. What you are experiencing is a known issue. It is a real pain in the rear to get it right. We fought this on our car through several tires, balances, and alignment specs before they got it right. Then had to go through it again when we rotated the tires.
 
Went through the exact same thing. NTB ended up rebalancing them 3 times in 3 weeks and its seems fine, for now anyways. They said if it comes back again i'll have to go to another one of their stores that has the road force balancer and get that done. We'll see.
 
This is my biggest problem with my LS at the moment. I replaced my tires about 4 weeks ago with the Nitto Neo Gen due to special design for lowered cars. The Neo Gen’s inner shoulder tread blocks are designed to reduce the amount of irregular wear commonly associated with lowered vehicles. I was put on these tires by a local tuner ethusiast in town. You can read about the tires here: http://www.nittotire.com/tires_neogen.asp

As for the problem, I have had my LS back to my alignment shop 4 times. He ran out the tires and rims and they are perfectly round. However, this sterring nibble is killing me. It will vibrate at various speeds. As for instance, in the mornings I travel the interstate and cruise at 70 MPH. The vibration will come and go and isn't consistent. I investigated taking my car to a local tire shop that has the Hunter Road Force Balancer. You can read about that here: http://www.gsp9700.com/ Not all tire places have this set up. The machine is suppose to simulate road conditions by applying 1400lbs of pressure to the tire as it rotates. It is suppose to find inconsistencies in the tires which static balancing would not detect.

I plan to take my car to a local shop next week to balance these tires. My teeth chatter for 40 minutes after getting to work in the morning!
 
Just talked to the manager at NTB. I'm bringing it in again tomorrow. He said that they will perform additional steps since there is an ongoing problem. Here is what he said they will do:

- Balance the tires then put them back on the balance machine for a 2nd time to insure that the balance dead on.
- Measure the wheel and tire to insure that they are both perfectly round.

They do not have a road force balance machine.

I'll let you know how it works out
 
TonyLS said:
Just talked to the manager at NTB. I'm bringing it in again tomorrow. He said that they will perform additional steps since there is an ongoing problem. Here is what he said they will do:

- Balance the tires then put them back on the balance machine for a 2nd time to insure that the balance dead on.
- Measure the wheel and tire to insure that they are both perfectly round.

They do not have a road force balance machine.

I'll let you know how it works out
Click to expand...
Click on this link to find a shop in your area that has the Hunter Road Force Machine:

http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm

Let us know what you find out.
 
When I brought the car into NTB today the manager insured me that he would personally work with the tech on this problem. He told me that his machines were calibrated a few days ago. So they rebalanced the tires, and then put them back on the machine to double check them. He told me that the balance was off a bit. They also checked the wheels and said that they were in deed perfectly round. They checked the alignement and found that all four wheels were in spec, they did do a slight adjustment on one wheel to bring it within the optimal setting. He took it for a test drive but said he couldn't bring it up to 70 due to traffic, but was ok around 55-60.

So after taking it out of the shop I brought it on the turnpike and brought it up to 90, no problem! Finally it's fixed and now I'm enjoying the LS better than ever.

it's too bad I had to bring it in a 3rd time before they got it right. For now on I'm going to direct tire (an excellent tire shop, expensive but they know what they're doing) I never had a problem with them.

Thanks for the information. I'll have to remember about the road force balancer. By the way direct tire has one of them, $25 per tire. Hopefully i won't need it but good to know in the future.
 
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