Wobbly Wheel |
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Pegsta
Senior Member II Joined: 03-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 171 |
Topic: Wobbly Wheel Posted: 13-June-2006 at 14:07 |
Hi Guys, I've been having fun with my motor recently... not the sort of fun we all want to have. The miserable sort of fun trying to find the cause of something. In this case - high speed steering wheel wobble. Now the obvious and most common problem that causes this is wheel balancing but if you read on you will see I have covered that several times over. Here is my story so far. Roughly 2-2.5 months ago one of the rear trailing arm bushes broke through excessive wear. While that was being fixed the mechanics found both rear shocks to be dead too. I can't believe I didn't notice this as I'm normally pretty good with things like that but hey ho - on we go. When I got the car back I found it to be pulling heavily to the right hand side. I put this down to geometry settings being out due to all the work which had just been performed on the car. I took the car to horizon motorsport who did a geo upgrade and alignment for me. They were very very helpful and re-adjusted the car several times after as I didn't feel comfy with the upgraded geo. One of the final things they did for me was install some polyurethane bushes on the front trailing arms as I was feeling some looseness with the front end at speed. After this I first had the wheel wobble. I had all four wheels balanced and these seemed to ease the problem but not cure it. My mechanic had noticed on a previous visit that the lower ball joints on the front arms were worn. He said it wasn't a major issue but could do with being seen to in the near future. I figured that because I was probably feeling more through the steering due to the new bushes I was probably feeling the play in the arms at high speed. So I had those changed. Still got the wheel wobble after this so I had the wheels checked again by a different garage. This time I was told both rear tyres were due for replacement and one of the fronts. I was also told the wheels were out of balance again which I found suprising considering I'd only had it done about a month before. Still.. I had them do it. Still had the wobble. Had the garage put the rear wheels on the front and the fronts on the back. Just in case the front tyres being so old (almost three years) might have been out of shape. Aside from some strange pulling to the right (the rear tyres had been worn alot on the inside - I put this down to the natural wear pattern of rear tyres on a bimmer) the wobble was gone. Yay I thought. That's the answer. So I ordered 4 brand new Continentals. Had them fitted. Wheel wobble back. :( Had the front and rears swapped again after a couple of days. Wheel wobble still in effect. Now I had a couple of theories. One theory being one of my alloys could be out of shape - when the guys were fitting the new tyres they took all the wheels off the car... so if by my previous swapping of wheels I'd managed to get the bad one put to the back - it might have made it back to the front. I also know that some garages don't always balance the rear wheels. So if I'd had the wheels swapped and the bad wheel ended up at the back I could have ended up with an unbalanced wheel at the front. This is the only explanation I can come up with - I haven't got round to taking the car back to anywhere yet. Hoping to do that the weekend but in the meantime.. does anyone have any other ideas???? BTW the speeds I get the wobble between are 55-80ish... Any ideas on what this could be would be most most most welcome. Thanks Gaz Edited by Pegsta |
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1998 Boston Green 328i SE
Chipped by ChippedUK |
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steven.seed
Really Senior Member II Joined: 24-June-2005 Location: Sale, Cheshire Status: Offline Points: 1507 |
Posted: 13-June-2006 at 14:27 |
1998 E36 318iS Saloon
1989 E30 318i. Coupe 2000 E39 520i Touring |
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mike328i
Newbie Joined: 07-May-2006 Status: Offline Points: 20 |
Posted: 14-June-2006 at 10:53 |
Hi there Pegsta Interesting post - one of the things I noticed was that you have had poly lower control arm bushes fitted as well as a lot of suspension work. Now, applying logic to your problems, it would seem that you have (prior to fitting your Continentals) achieved a wobble free ride with your current suspension set-up when your mechanic swapped your fronts to the back? Correct? That says to me that it is the wheels/tyres that are now causing your wheel vibrations rather than anything else worn on your car.If it was something on your suspension, balancing the tyres/wheels would not have removed the wobble unless you had them balanced on the car and by consequence the erroneous suspension part had been balanced as part of the whole rotating assembly. I think the relevance of the poly bushes is that it makes the car very sensitive to slight imbalances in the wheel/tyre combo. Have a look at this post off E36coupe and see whether you might think it worthwhile trying a balance of your wheels on a Hunter Road Force machine This is the post **************************************************** The importance of a good wheel balance... Apologies for length, I want you to feel my pain! **************************************************** &n bsp; Does this sound similar to your situation?
Cheers
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Pegsta
Senior Member II Joined: 03-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 171 |
Posted: 14-June-2006 at 13:11 |
Cheers Mate!!! that sounds exactly like my situation. I'm in half a mind actually to have the poly bushes replaced by standard ones if I'm going to get this sort of malarky all the time. But I think I'll hunt out one of those wheel balancing machines first. Cheers again. Gaz Edited by Pegsta |
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1998 Boston Green 328i SE
Chipped by ChippedUK |
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mike328i
Newbie Joined: 07-May-2006 Status: Offline Points: 20 |
Posted: 14-June-2006 at 14:13 |
Wherabouts are you roughly in the country? |
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Pegsta
Senior Member II Joined: 03-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 171 |
Posted: 14-June-2006 at 14:36 |
I'm in Birmingham. I've found BMTR who are only a couple of miles from me have the hunter system. I'm going on Saturday with it. They're charging £10 a wheel. Even after this if it's sorted I still might think about getting the bushes changed. Cheers Gaz |
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1998 Boston Green 328i SE
Chipped by ChippedUK |
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mike328i
Newbie Joined: 07-May-2006 Status: Offline Points: 20 |
Posted: 14-June-2006 at 15:09 |
Pegsta Are you sure it is a Hunter GSP9700 Road force one? They are like a miniature rolling road not a conventional tyre balancing machine. The reason I ask is because Hunter also make the more normal types of wheel balancer machine but they don't work as well. If BMTR have got a GSP9700 Road Force model then please let me know - keep us informed how you get on as well
Cheers
Edited by mike328i |
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mike328i
Newbie Joined: 07-May-2006 Status: Offline Points: 20 |
Posted: 15-June-2006 at 08:49 |
Hi Pegsta You are indeed correct! Checked with them this morning - nicely found and I shall bear them in mind for future balancing as BMTR in Birmingham do have the Hunter Road Force balancer Let me know how you get on with it on Saturday
Cheers
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Pegsta
Senior Member II Joined: 03-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 171 |
Posted: 17-June-2006 at 23:48 |
Ok - so I didn't get to BMTR. I went to my mechanic for him to take a look at the car first as he knows it. We jacked it up and span the wheels (the rears were spun under power). What we found was the front offside alloy was ever so slightly out of shape and the rear offside alloy was out of shape. We've swapped the rear nearside with the front offside. I've yet to give it a propper run as I had to get home shortly after that but I'm going to put it through its paces properly on Monday and see what happens. Felt ok though on the way home. I'm annoyed now though as www.autoalloyz.co.uk had a brand new set of my alloys with tyres for £225 a month or so back... I could have had those and then sold my current ones for that much to a second hand alloy dealer.. (already had a quote from one for them). Oh well..... Cheers Gaz |
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1998 Boston Green 328i SE
Chipped by ChippedUK |
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mike328i
Newbie Joined: 07-May-2006 Status: Offline Points: 20 |
Posted: 18-June-2006 at 18:49 |
Glad you found the problem in the end - won't you just move the wobble to the rear though? Or do you not notice it through the car now? |
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Pegsta
Senior Member II Joined: 03-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 171 |
Posted: 18-June-2006 at 22:45 |
Theory goes (and I'm a great fan of theory) that I shouldn't notice too much if any wobble having the dodgy wheels at the back. They'll certainly do until I am able to get my hands on a decent pair of replacements. Well it'll be getting it's first proper run tomorrow on the way to work so I'll know more tomorrow evening. Cheers Gaz |
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1998 Boston Green 328i SE
Chipped by ChippedUK |
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