The car wobbles and shakes terribly, unbearably at around 45+, but is fine under those speeds...Can a bent rim cause this or is it out of balance. I've had cars out of balance before, and it never shook this badly. But, I've never, till now, had a bent rim, so I'm wondering if this is the cause. The bad rim is left rear, if it matters...
It's perfectly aligned...But I know being out of balance will cause it to shake a bit, but this feels like the wheels are about to fall off...
Severely bent rim would throw wheel out-of-balace. Alignment could be affected, depending on angle of impact.
A common cause for tire and steering wheel vibration is a warped rotor. It/they may need to be replaced or simply turned.
The steering wheel doesn't vibrate, but the whole shell of the car does...The rotors were just turned...So the bent wheel could be causing this? Thanks for the help so far guys, keep it coming...
Sure a bent wheel could do this. Do you have steel wheels or alloys. Not that hard to bend the steelies but if you hit something hard enough to bend the alloys you will know it. If you just had the wheels off to do the brakes I would double check your lug nuts. You should re-tourqe them to make sure the wheel is not simply loose. Be careful though, I recently snaped some of my wheel studs because I applied too much force and they were well worn.
They are alloys...I took the car to Discount Tire and they ordered me a new rim since they are still warrantied...They said everything else was good to go so I suppose the bent wheel is the culprit...I don't know, I guess I'll find out when I get a good rim put back on...
If the rim was bent enough to actually see the wobble, it will shake like crazy. Been there, done that.
since we are talking about tires here
I have been noticing on uneven roads my tires go blub blub blub...almost like they are gonna fall off. And on the expressway today it sounded like they were hollow. They were really loud. Now I know its not the bearings because I just had those replaced. Could it be out of balance or need to be aligned? It's not pulling but I did notice the side of the tire facing the street that the tread is gone so I am wondering if that is causing the noise. Thank you for your advice. Oh and I notice when I put on the brakes the blub blub blub noise sometimes get worse.
Alicia,
Which tire is losing tread? If it is all four then there are some caster camber issues that need fixed. If it is just one, rotate the tires front to back and see if the problem continues. If you take alot of right hand turnes at high speed then your left front outside tread would wear more than the rest of the tire also, I've kinda had that problem. Check to see that the tires side to side and front to back are wearing even. Just my $.02
You need to start a new thread instead of hijacking existing ones...Anyway, Bentley, when you say "shake like crazy", does it feel like it vibrates the seats? Thanks for the help...
I just thought since you were having the same kinda problem maybe it was similar...geez....
Its the drivers side front one.....I dont think I make that many left hand turns...but I figured rotating the tire from front to back would help see if the sound goes away..thanks....
Understood...But it makes the thread more difficult to follow when multiple people are asking questions. I wasn't trying to be a dick, but there is a reason we have multiple forums and are able to start threads so we don't just have one huge run-on scroll...