Vibrating Sterring Wheel 97 sunfire

  • Thread starter Thread starter michelle
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michelle

When driving at about 70 km/hr the sterring wheel starts to vibrate. By the time it hits 80 its noticeably vibrating, it almost feels like its vibrating in the gas and brake pedals too. Now, we have done balancing 3 times and wheel alignment and its not showing anything wrong, any ideas on what this could be? I was possibley told it could be in the steering column and something needs tightening or it needs new rotors ...?
 
Don't listen to morons.

Check your tires... you may have a broken belt in your tire or a 'knot' on the tire.
And yes, brand new tires straight off the shelf have been known to have broken belts.
By the way, the belts are the steel wire rings that circle the entire tire. There are many of them and it only takes one breaking to make a considerable difference in performance.

And a 'knot' is simply a rupture, or weak spot, in the tire that allows air to enter that area and balloon it out... like a knot.

But for starters, try rotating your tires.
Front to back ONLY. Not side to side... some tires have directional patterns that can only go on the wheel one way or severe tire damage will occur.

If you notice a difference, perhaps in the direction the vibration is imminating, it's probably the tire.

Another possibility: Have you used any fix-a-flat or any other tire-injectable chemical in your tires? That fix-a-flat stuff never leaves the tire(unless you have a huge hole in your tire) and dries in mass to a location inside the tire and causes a significant weight balance problem. You can't solve it by balancing your tires because the 'dried cake' of this crap moves around inside the tire.

But unless you've had an accident, there should be nothing wrong with the mechanical portion of your car.

The rotors only need replacing if they show significant wear, such as, deep(1/16", 2mm) scrapes... the rotors should be relatively smooth with no deep scars; or if the rotors are warped, possibly from overuse at highspeeds heating the rotor to extremes and cooling it too fast... such as running through a puddle of water. Or of the rotor is too thin. If you look from the top down on the thin side of the rotor(such as looking down if it were mounted on the car) you will see two thick sections with a grid like structure in the center. Kind of like an oreo cookie. Those thick sections should be at least 1/8"(3-4mm)thick. However, the thickness wouldn't cause vibration. Only if the rotor is warped will it cause a vibration.

But if you have problems with the tires, it will 'echo' through the car and cause the soft rubber grommets supporting your brake and gas pedals to vibrate.

But if none of this stuff works... try another(well known... retail) mechanic.
Honest mechanics are like lawyers.

Personally I think it's your tires.
 
check an see if there is any mud up by ur wheels.. my wheel was goin crazy.. and all it was was sum mud-
 
out of all the stuff he wrote he forgot one thing rotors can be purchased new and be warpped or out of round (roundout) any of these will cause the vibrations so would improperly tourqued wheel lugs or an improperly installed rotor all of which could be check out and cleared i am a believer that it is in the wheels and they were either not balanced correctly or static balanced because tires often come with heavy spots that cannot be balanced for completely the rotors could even be warped from improperly removing the rim from the vehicle try removing the tires rotating them mark them for location somehow before you go to the shop so you know they did it correctly and then if it still acts up id doi a complete brake job pads rotors and the rears then try again good luck
 
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