Steering wheel vibrating at high speeds

[H8CHIR6KU]

2 things here

if you have just had a wheel alignment and new tyres i would be taking it back them and asking them wtf?

either the tyres arent balanced or you have a shitty tie rod end. 99% of the time it will be tyres out of balance that cause the vibration. if it is out of balance they should have balanced them when they fit new tyres. good tyre places should also look at your old tyres to see if its worn unevenly or prematurely and let you know why or try to sell you something to fix it
if its steering components that are out of whack then they obviously didnt pay much attention when they did your wheel alignment. first rule of wheel alignment is fix dodgy steering components so you can get a true wheel alignment

of course these days most people just take it for granted that everything is ok, you know she'll be right. roll it on and roll it out.

[focus_7]

Thanks everyone for the advice, took it to the alignment place today and it turned out to be a combination of things.

The drivers side front wheel was a but out of balance, and when he rebalanced it the wheel wasn't as round as it should be which is disappointing. There is also a little bit of play in the ball joints but nothing too serious the guy said.

We put the dodgy wheel on the passenger side so it wouldn't cause as many vibrations, the drive home was alot smoother, but that news about the wheel is a bit disappointing.

[ke_70]

what wheels are they?

very strange that theyre out of round.

[xero]

if they are sportmaxx im pretty sure christon_X had a similar problem when he got his..

[focus_7]

14x7 SSR Mesh, the one without the step. I should clarify - they weren't brand new in case there was a bit of confusion there.

[ke_70]

the centres have probley been taken out to paint or somthing. they havnt been put back together right... mabey?

or they've been smashed and buckled?

did they measure how out of round it was? i had a wheel that was about 1.1mm out. and they shook about 90+kms from memory. affected braking alot to!

[focus_7]

Well I'm not sure on whether they've had a smash, but when I got the wheels reconditioned the guy said the centres were so corroded on and he couldn't knock the centre out.

Would the tyre shop be able to measure how out of round a wheel is? Or would I have to take it somewhere more specialised.

[ke_70]

tyre shop probley wouldnt be able to measure


the easyest way to measure it is take the tyre off. bolt it up to the car. then setup a dial indercator so it runs along the inside of the tyre bead (where the tyre will sit). then just spin the wheel and find the high and low spots.

my steelies measure somewhere between 1-2mm and i did one of my meshies to and that was about .2 i think.

i wouldnt really bother measuring if you know its out. and if you wanted you could run dial indercator on the dish if you didnt want take the tyres off. but might not be as accurate...

also you wont get the centre out with the tyre still on.

[ae71]

they SHOULD be doing a full visual inspection of suspension as part of the service


not too many ways you can put a wheel together.

also they have to be fairly fucked before they actually cause a vibration, ive used quite bent wheels that dont run true on the front without an issue