steering wheel vibrate like a mother

T

thecrash91

Member
:
2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege
so i recently got struts, and neglected to get an alignment because for the most part it stays straight, not much wear in 1k miles so im not concerned about that too much but hell i could be wrong. but most times (not all the time) when i get on the thruway (65+mph) my steering wheel vibrates quite violently. more so when i hit 70+. but only lasts for 5 minutes then goes away. my first thought is that it was snow causing imbalance but thats not the case. theres nothing caught in the wheels. what puzzles me is that it only lasts a few minutes then goes away.
 
The car doesn't stay "straight for the most part" when you change struts. I would definitely get an alignment and also get your wheels rotated/balanced while you're at it.
 
That's usually due to unbalanced wheels. You should switch the front tovthe back to see if it does the same thing. If is then it's the tires, if it isn't then is something else. Also a good alignmentvis needed! lol
 
Check your wheel bearings. I had the same problem with mine about six months ago.
 
im with the guys above ...

check
wheel balancing
wheels bearings (check for noise)
double check your bolts from the strut swap
 
thanks guys for the speedy response, ill get it checked out and update asap. once i get the money of course. college guy speaking, lol.
 
You can switch the front and rear tires yourself. Shouldn't cost any money. lol
 
well id suspect its the alignment most likely, but ill try the wheels, i have a jack somewhere in my dorm. but people give me looks when i work on my car, like its a foreign language. the thing that gets me is its only occasional, like i picked up my girlfriend last weekend and it was fine when i first drove on the highway, but on the way back (2 hours later) it was doin the same thing were the steering wheel shook real bad.
 
thecrash91 said:
well id suspect its the alignment most likely, but ill try the wheels, i have a jack somewhere in my dorm. but people give me looks when i work on my car, like its a foreign language. the thing that gets me is its only occasional, like i picked up my girlfriend last weekend and it was fine when i first drove on the highway, but on the way back (2 hours later) it was doin the same thing were the steering wheel shook real bad.
Click to expand...

Your steering wheel will not shake if you need an alignment. Its prolly a wheel balance issue
 
"so i recently got struts"

Did you have the problem before replacing the struts? If not I would suspect a bad
strut. Bad struts/shocks can cause problems like you have.

I agree it's not wheel alignment causing the vibration. That doesn't mean the aligmnment
is good, it usually will not cause wheel shake. I would think if your wheel beearings aren't
noisy they are not the problem.

Clifton
 
Last edited:
well the struts are fine. the car doesnt bounce, it just shakes violently when im at high speeds, and yes sorry i didnt clarify that once i hit a high enough speed the WHOLE car shakes
 
Tzar177 said:
Your steering wheel will not shake if you need an alignment. Its prolly a wheel balance issue
Click to expand...

It most likely is a wheel balance issue. Personally tho, I would use my money to get the car aligned first, so that it doesn't eat up my tires
 
just going to throw this out there...if it completely goes away in 5 minutes, then could it just be that your tires need time to heat up? The last set I had on my car, if I let the car sit for 12 hours in the cold, the tires would deform a bit and would be out of round until they warmed up. It sounds like your problem is more severe than just that, but it may be a contributing factor.
 
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