Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Jiggling Steering wheel

The steering wheel of my mystique jiggles every so slighly back and forth on the highway. The car tracks staight. The movement of the wheel is quick and about a centimeter of travel.

I have rotated the tires and checked the air pressures. It seems to stop in corners but is more pronounced just comming out of the corner(slower period and more variance) then it settles in to a slight jiggle(faster period and less variance).

At about 110 km and up I get a noticable thumping from the front end like a tire is not right(this happened before and after the rotation), although it did not cause me to slow down at all.

Otherwise the car is solid. Any thoughts?

Ever used that fix-a-flat stuff? If you have it could have settled into one section of the tire. In my old car I didn't know any better and used that stuff. It did what you've explained... slight movement in the steering wheel but still going straight, be pretty shaky around 40mph or so and then smooth out around 70mph (less variance) and then get worse quickly once I hit a few mph faster. In corners the inertia isn't being xferred as much into the suspension with the higher profile tires I had (I took corners, ummm, fast), it's going into the tires a little more.

Just a thought...

tie rod ends maybe???

try geting your tires balanced. It sounds like on of the tires in the fron is slightly out of balance.

You say you recently had a tire rotation, well its likely that one of the tires you moved from the back to the front is slightly out of balance, and went un-noticed while mounted on the rear.

I think I found the problem. The front drivers side tire has a slow leak. I filled it up today and the jigglined stopped!

if u fixed it good stuff, but if it comes back check to c if one of your wheel bearings r loose.
drag*on

Sealed bearings (FWD) do not become loose like a 2 piece bearing setup can...

The jiggling steering wheel is being caused by one or both of the front tires. Either one or both needing to be balanced or bent rim or rims will cause this. So you could have your front tires balanced and at the same time the service person can tell you if the rims are bent at all.