Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting steering wheel shakes at 65 mph

Hit a curb hard... new rim, wheel alignment (they said nothing was bent), but the steering wheel shakes at highway speed. Is this a wheel bearing problem?

Mechanic now claims that the problem could be a bent suspension piece or a shifted belt in the tire.... maybe the tire thing I can buy, but if the suspension was bent wouldn't there be other problems??? The steering is not loose, and the car doesn't pull (drives straight).

Did they remember to rebalance the wheel? or did they balance it correctly??

I had a similar problem where I put a nail in one of my tires, had it patched but when they patched the tire they never rebalanced the wheel with the patch in it, therefore it was unbalanced and as soon as I hit 65+ my steering wheel would shake profusely...

had the wheel rebalanced and all was good...

Figure you have already checked this but never hurts to ask.

They charged me for the balance, so I hope they did it.

Bad CV shaft
Possible subframe misalignment
Bad wheel bearing
Bad Tie Rod end

A lot of damage can be done to multiple parts when hitting a curb!

Switch both tires one at a time to the rear and retest after each tire change. When the steering vibration goes away, you've found the right tire out of balance. If it doesn't go away, you've got bigger problems which can be any one of the rotating assembly pieces...

i had this on my taurusaurus...but only the right wheel would shake but i'd feel it thu the steering wheel...replaced tie rod ends and that helped me

I bought my car with a bad tie rod end, and, let me tell you, it shook at all speeds, and wandered every which way it wanted to... or tried, at least. Occam's Razor suggests the tire, but the control arm bushing are very good at going bad (why do you think they sell the entire arm-with balljoints-for $62?).

it could just be an unbalanced tire...even if they did balance them. i have bad luck with taking my car in for balancing the tires. i usually go to Sam's Club...well, I used to, when i had my cougar. anyway, they screwed up the balancing on the tires 3 times. and one time i took it to a small shop to have it done and they screwed it up too. maybe they can recheck them. or...you could have a radial pull in one of your tires. i've had that before. either way if you rotate them back like brad suggested you'll be able to figure it out.

Many thanks to everybody who replied. The "mechanic" had a heck of a time trying to figure why the wheel was shaking (checked, aligned, and balanced again). They ended up switching the tires around (as suggested). I don't know exactly what worked, but the steering wheel is nice and steady once again. I was told to think about investing in a new set of tires... but those Pilot XGT's ain't cheap, so I am not in a hurry to replace them.

On the plus side of life, I had to teach some 'punk-ass' in a MX3 (with a fart pipe) a lesson today. All is right in my world once again!