14 SGT plagued by wobble/vibration

4374 Views 17 Replies 10 Participants Last post by arathol, May 25, 2017

lilbenz230

Discussion Starter · Apr 16, 2017

Car has 31,300 miles and brand new tires just installed/balanced. Rims checked, no bends. Alignment check is good. Car was built in 2/2014 and in Japan.

There are 2 main symptoms that I'm having. 1st is a persistent vibration in the chassis/floors/seats at highway speeds from 60-80mph. The tire shop says the balance is correct per their machine. 2nd is a wobble felt in the steering wheel under hard acceleration, say merging onto an interstate. It's brief, but definitely there.

My local dealer is pretty useless, so even though the car is under warranty I am probably going to need to use an independent specialist. But does anyone have any suggestions where to start looking?

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Road Trip

· #2 · Apr 16, 2017

Had a similar vibration on my wife's Chevy Cruze, even though that tire shop said it was properly balanced.

Did either your tire shop or your dealer use a Hunter Road Force Balancing Machine on your wheel? If not, change to one that does. A road force machine applies reverse pressure against your tires while it is being spun balanced. It does so via a second roller, stimulating the upward force the road exerts against your tires while you are driving.

Then took her Cruze to one tire shop that all their balancing equipment is Hunter Road Force Balancing machines, and the 60-68 MPH vibration stopped 100%, and not surprisingly, I since have changed my tire shop to the one with HRFB machine now. BTW, GM has just made HFRB machines "essential equipment" for all its dealerships -- though I do not know whether they are giving them a 90 day window to get it installed.

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Road Trip

· #9 · May 14, 2017 (Edited)

When I had my tires immediately changed from Dunlops to Michelin A/S 3+'s, putting the new tires on Mazda's 18" dark alloy accessory wheels, had my tire shop tell me the run-out on the new ones. All were good. I think we consumers should be not only always be requiring road force balancing when we get new tires, but asking and considering for wheel run out information, especially if you have just bought and are initially mounting tires onto new wheels you just bought at the tire shop. Here's more wheel/tire balancing info for thos who want:

Tire & Wheel Balancing

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Road Trip

· #12 · May 19, 2017

Are your tires wearing evenly, no signs of improper wear? If not uneven wear, that is a good first step. If uneven wear, have your wheels/tires been re-balanced exactly as per below?

Got to a highly-rated independent tire shop that has a Hunter Road Force balancing machine, and have them test each wheel for balance. If not in balance, to fix it they can break the tire bead, rotate the tire around the rim a little or a lot (as the machine shows them), and re-inflate. Have them also check your wheels for being true, checking the amount of their maximum run-out, for it is possible that you have a bend tire from a pothole. If so, and you like your wheels, there are specialty wheel shops that can re-true your wheel.

And best option, maybe you can find a shop that both can re-true a wheel and has a Hunter RFB machine and do it all at once.

Lastly, and maybe not last in the order of doing things but upfront, find a dealership who will fully and properly inspect your suspension. It could be, not probably but more than a remote possibility, that your new strut is defective, or something else is needing repair.

Sorry to throw all these potential issues at you, but as you asked, wanted you to have options to pursue this, as I hate driving with a vibration and am guessing so do you.

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