steering wheel vibration will not go away

I have a notorious curb hitter in the family (they rip bumpers off too!) The rubber isolators for the rack and pinion were worn, it didn't help they were always running the car aground like an Italian cruise ship though.
 
found one of my front struts seized but replaced them and no difference in the vibration. this is eating me alive
 
ok, i let a local mechanics shop i trust take this issue over as it is baffling me, dropped the car off 2hours ago i will update when i get the issue fixed. i want people to know what to look at if they have a similar issue and are baffled like me. again i have balanced tires numerous times, got new tires, replaced control arms (balljoints attached) and tie rod ends (inner and outer both sides) i am not experiencing any noise or any other driving issues nor any fluid leaks other than very noticeable and annoying steering wheel vibration at 60+ mph that will not go away (concerns me something could break at highway speed and cause a wreck) so i will post my final repair for this issue when known
 
well got it back from shop vibration is still there they said it was smooth when they drove it after doing an advanced alignment but i got it on the smooth freeway in my area and it felt like i was hitting a pothole every second like it has been.
 
anyone with any ideas? its definitely not wheel balance its not making noises it just vibrates above 60 and feels unstable
 
well have not gotten this fixed every tire shop says the last tire shop had the wheel balance way off and thats concerning me, none have mentioned bent wheels and i cannot see any signs of a bend while looking at them. however i am just going to drive it as is until i graduate next semester and hopefuly if i find a decent paying job get a newer car
 
so every tire shop says the last one was off but yet they still can't get it right and the next place says the same thing?
 
kms1990 said:
well have not gotten this fixed every tire shop says the last tire shop had the wheel balance way off and thats concerning me, none have mentioned bent wheels and i cannot see any signs of a bend while looking at them. however i am just going to drive it as is until i graduate next semester and hopefuly if i find a decent paying job get a newer car
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Either they like your money, or you are losing weights as you drive. Do you feel like the problem gets worse as time goes on after a balance?

Also, have you tried different rims?

Those wheel balancers can only simulate so much, and the balance at higher speeds will be harder to adjust. I remember a guy coming into our shop who needed rims balanced on his smart car that just could not be balanced because we did not have the weights... It needed something like 300 grams on one side alone.

Furthermore, I have seen curb-rashed wheels that although we can get pretty close, we were unable to balanced perfectly because the rims were too out of shape.
 
it seems like nothing changes i think i either have a wheel that may have a defect in it (but maybe not a noticeable bend) they are new factory rims and have not been curb rashed either they are bent, something is defective in the manufacture of one or more or i have another issue with the car. i do not have any issues under 60 and it feels worst at 70mph tapers off at about 85mph cv axles all look great great, and no one can find any issue with the hubs or bearings. discount balances them for free as i bought the tires with them, i bouht a balance that is lifetime at ntb because of this issue and 3 different discounts 4 different ntbs and 3 independent locall shops ( 1 of which i use anytime a job is too big, or needed at a time i cannot do it and my family has used them for years with no issues, so i trust them) and all say wheels balance off the car but say the last place had weights in wrong spot, that leads me to believe a wheel(s) have a defect or there is another issue i cannot loctae in the car. i am wondering if a cv axle has worn a grove in the mounting on the transmisson or something that would only be seen with disassembly
 
The_big_dill said:
Are you sure you got the right CV axels? I know that there are suppose to be dampers on the axels.

http://www.bentleypublishers.com/images//volkswagen/features/vp93/bentley-vp93-bc1-2-500.jpg

Look at the capital A in the diagram.
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they are oe cv axles have not been replaced and boots look good with no rips or holes i can find

i had to replace the wheels when i had a medical issue and hit a curb, bending all 4 i bought them off rock auto and they are "reconditioned" oe ones however the problem started when my tires changed but not the rims, yet still continues with different tires. so i am wondering if i have a defective wheel or 2 that are not perfectly round(but not bent when looked at on a balancer as no shop says they see any bends) or "reconditioned" right. i could get new ones from rockauto but in order to get warranty i would either have to send old ones back and wait for new ones and be without a car or spend $600 get new ones and have the tires swapped and send old ones back but i do not have $600 right now even though i know it will be refunded as i have blown all my money trying to fix this issue
 
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kms1990 said:
they are oe cv axles have not been replaced and boots look good with no rips or holes i can find

i had to replace the wheels when i had a medical issue and hit a curb, bending all 4 i bought them off rock auto and they are "reconditioned" oe ones however the problem started when my tires changed but not the rims, yet still continues with different tires. so i am wondering if i have a defective wheel or 2 that are not perfectly round(but not bent when looked at on a balancer as no shop says they see any bends) or "reconditioned" right. i could get new ones from rockauto but in order to get warranty i would either have to send old ones back and wait for new ones and be without a car or spend $600 get new ones and have the tires swapped and send old ones back but i do not have $600 right now even though i know it will be refunded as i have blown all my money trying to fix this issue
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Try to find a place that uses a road-force machine, the kind with the big roller that actually puts the wheel/tire under load and balances them under real world conditions.

One of the back wheels on my car is bent so badly that you'd be surprised it even holds air. But you'd never know it by driving the car, the Hunter machines do such a nice job.

Since the problem started after you had tires put on that's where I would say the problem is. I would check the center bores of the wheels too, corrosion on the aluminum increases the ID, and it can get bad enough that the wheel won't seat squarely. If you have to knock the wheels off the car every time, that could be the problem. Good seating wheels won't require force to remove.
 
hotcracker69 said:
and you already check you power steering bushing?


inner tie rod?
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yes, and the tie rods (inner and outer, both sides) and control arms were replaced to try to fix this issue. so were front struts when i found one was seized (even though i had replaced them all the way around with kyb's last year) and it seemed to coincidentally start when i had continentials put on but i have switched tires and it did not help
 
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take it to a shop , to a mechanic to be exact , with all that money you put in it you could have got it fixed . vibrations in the wheel could potentially be a lot of things , but since you have eliminated potential causes just keep going with replacing everything ;P
 
Bryan H said:
take it to a shop , to a mechanic to be exact , with all that money you put in it you could have got it fixed . vibrations in the wheel could potentially be a lot of things , but since you have eliminated potential causes just keep going with replacing everything ;P
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it has been to 3 with no fix they all looked at the car for a long time to see if they saw anything i was missing and drove it, thats why its cost so damned much. 2 said wheel balance and tried with no fix the third noticed my motor mounts were worn and showed me so i agreed to have them replaced (majority of money spent) and that improved idle noise and vibration, however it has not helped the wheel vibration. i then went back to the third mechanic and he drove it with me in the car and he noticed it so we got it on the lift and looked, nothing is bent (noticeably) and nothing was loose. we inspected the cv axles and nothing looked wrong, they do not make noise, the hubs do not move on the axle (like most do when bearing is bad) he had 3 techs looking at it and none could find any other issues to cause the vibration. however i have noticed the past week or so it has become very intermittent even at 70mph where it was at its worst consistently every time. now sometimes it will start if i hit a bump at freeway speed (like a pothole, not the regular little bumps city freeways have) and when it starts it keeps going that whole trip above 60 but some trips it wont do it at all. i also had to replace my front struts as one froze up but that did not fix it either.

the car has run over a curb (i have a seizure disorder and it was not yet diagnosed) i had a seizure and ran over a curb, bending all 4 wheels, had to buy new wheels and it marked some of the underside with yellow paint (seemed to bend a cross member which i had looked at right after the incident to determine if it would need replacing and the body shop said no. it was still doing its job and just slightly bent (which it is just an inch or 2 up) but i wonder if i did something else when i hit that curb which was not immediately evident until the wheel started vibrating months later. either way now that its intermittent and when it happens it does not seem as bad i am just going to keep an eye on it and get a new car when i graduate in fall (if i can find a decent job with my business IT degreee)
 
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kms1990 said:
it has been to 3 with no fix they all looked at the car for a long time to see if they saw anything i was missing and drove it, thats why its cost so damned much. 2 said wheel balance and tried with no fix the third noticed my motor mounts were worn and showed me so i agreed to have them replaced (majority of money spent) and that improved idle noise and vibration, however it has not helped the wheel vibration. i then went back to the third mechanic and he drove it with me in the car and he noticed it so we got it on the lift and looked, nothing is bent (noticeably) and nothing was loose. we inspected the cv axles and nothing looked wrong, they do not make noise, the hubs do not move on the axle (like most do when bearing is bad) he had 3 techs looking at it and none could find any other issues to cause the vibration. however i have noticed the past week or so it has become very intermittent even at 70mph where it was at its worst consistently every time. now sometimes it will start if i hit a bump at freeway speed (like a pothole, not the regular little bumps city freeways have) and when it starts it keeps going that whole trip above 60 but some trips it wont do it at all. i also had to replace my front struts as one froze up but that did not fix it either.

the car has run over a curb (i have a seizure disorder and it was not yet diagnosed) i had a seizure and ran over a curb, bending all 4 wheels, had to buy new wheels and it marked some of the underside with yellow paint (seemed to bend a cross member which i had looked at right after the incident to determine if it would need replacing and the body shop said no. it was still doing its job and just slightly bent (which it is just an inch or 2 up) but i wonder if i did something else when i hit that curb which was not immediately evident until the wheel started vibrating months later. either way now that its intermittent and when it happens it does not seem as bad i am just going to keep an eye on it and get a new car when i graduate in fall (if i can find a decent job with my business IT degreee)
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now this is new info, there is damages that was do for sure. my car does not vibrate. something is loose/ bent/ worn or broken.

there is no way that bending 4 wheel, going on top of a curb caused just superficial damages
 
the thing is that was october of last year and it did not start until 2 months ago. the damage is to a cross beam and the shop that looked at it showed me what it does, and it is just a brace the bend does not cause the body to move or shake the bed is very very small and only noticeable when looking at the right angle and the frame itself if perfect from inspection after the incident. it holds alignment nothing is shifted or off underneath and everything is in its factory location.

it has also become very intermittent now and i have not noticed it the past 3 days so i think i stumbled on a fix maybe something was stuck somewhere it should not have been and came out.
 
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