Front end shakes @ 65+ mph, please help!

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JCamry94

Discussion Starter · Sep 5, 2010 (Edited)

Hey guys... So!

About 2-3 months ago my right front tire was impaled by a screw on the highway. The air pressure was completely lost after a few days and then I'd have to refill it. I didn't have the cash to fix it, so I put my full sized spare in its place. The spare was 10 mm wider than the other front tire, buy I didn't think much of it. Shortly after I hit the highway and began noticing a strong vibration from the front end over 60 mph... So I got my other same sized tire repaired and put that in place of the spare. This seemed to make the vibration stronger, but more centered (meaning I felt it then only underneath the pedals). In the following weeks I tried to diagnose the best I could and came up with only a few options.

So this leads me up to just a couple weeks ago. One of my inner cv boots was torn, so I got the half shaft and it both replaced. After, I took the car for an aligment, which I thought would solve the issue. When I went up in speeds the vibration was still present, but much less harsh. However I now noticed it between the 40-50 mph range as well as the 65+ mph speeds. This puzzled the hell out of me so I took what I thought would be my final measure to stop this vibration...

So yesterday I took time out to get my front tires completely balanced, as I was told that this may affect the smoothness of the ride. Now as it stands my car still vibrates at certain speeds (less jarring than before however). According to my speedo, the hot spots are from 43-50 mph and then 70+ mph.

I have seemingly done everything possible to remedy my situation and it's still not working out for me. What did I do to my poor front end? And what if anything can I do to completely rid my camry of terrible vibrations? Thanks guys

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Chris Crash

· #2 · Sep 5, 2010

Bent rims? Though that would probably give you a shake the whole time...

Did you get a printout of the alignment?

Grab your tire by the sides and shimmy it. Does it move? It shouldn't.

Also, check your lugnuts! If they're a little loose they can cause vibrations. If they're REALLY loose...they can cause all kinds of trouble.

fenixus

· #3 · Sep 5, 2010 (Edited)

most likely wrong wheel balance due to bent rims. usually wheels loose balance after some time, because of hitting pot holes and bending them a tiny bit (they become slightly out of round).

try redoing the balance on all wheels and put the worst ones in the rear and keep best in front, that's what i did and no more trouble. no more tire rotations.
when going for balancing, go to a shop using a state of the art machine like Hunter GSP9700 (use Tirerack.com to locate such installer in your area). it helps. also watch the numbers on all wheels by peeking over the technicians shoulder. make sure he does the job correctly.

EDIT:
sorry missed that you did balance already. try rotating front wheels to rear. your shaking speed spots are still falling into out balance problem i think.

JCamry94

Discussion Starter · #4 · Sep 5, 2010

The wheels aren't bent, I'm pretty sure about that!

I did get a printout of the aligment, the camber and toe looked dead on, however the car pulls VERY slightly to the right a tiny bit (stupid sears).

The nuts are great... I've worked on the car several times since them and torqued them down properly each time! Thanks man.

fenixus

· #5 · Sep 5, 2010

JCamry94 said:
The wheels aren't bent, I'm pretty sure about that!

.

how do you know that? you can't see it, only a machine can detect it when spinning the wheel at 60mph or so ... that's how they balance them, now precision of the machine impact the hole balancing process in 0.25oz weight increments. even too less or too more of weight by 0.25oz can cause those vibrations.
i had such case with my 00 solara. ended up re-balancing wheels on best machine i could find and putting worst wheels in the rear. no more problem and tested it up to 100mph hehe

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JCamry94

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 5, 2010

fenixus said:
most likely wrong wheel balance due to bent rims. usually wheels loose balance after some time, because of hitting pot holes and bending them a tiny bit (they become slightly out of round).

try redoing the balance on all wheels and put the worst ones in the rear and keep best in front, that's what i did and no more trouble. no more tire rotations.
when going for balancing, go to a shop using a state of the art machine like Hunter GSP9700 (use Tirerack.com to locate such installer in your area). it helps. also watch the numbers on all wheels by peeking over the technicians shoulder. make sure he does the job correctly.

EDIT:
sorry missed that you did balance already. try rotating front wheels to rear. your shaking speed spots are still falling into out balance problem i think.

Yeah I thought that balancing the damn wheels would do the trick! I got it done at America's Tire Co. and I have NEVER had a bad experience there!

I still have the full size spare in the back right to keep it away from the drive wheels, but I'm gonna get it back off and have all the same sizes on there again.

The spare is a 205/70/14 and the rest of them are 195/70/14s. I have one more steel rim that just needs a new tire on it. I figure I will get that one on their and have all the wheels balanced. Should that work?

JCamry94

Discussion Starter · #7 · Sep 5, 2010

fenixus said:
how do you know that? you can't see it, only a machine can detect it when spinning the wheel at 60mph or so ... that's how they balance them, now precision of the machine impact the hole balancing process in 0.25oz weight increments. even too less or too more of weight by 0.25oz can cause those vibrations.
i had such case with my 00 solara. ended up re-balancing wheels on best machine i could find and putting worst wheels in the rear. no more problem and tested it up to 100mph hehe

Ahh okay. I wasn't sure if you meant visibly bent or what. To be honest I haven't the first idea about balancing numbers, how do I ask/determine which are the worst of the bunch? Being limited to 65-70 on the highway blows, and besides I've been much more before in my cam, and there were no vibrations! Hah

fenixus

· #8 · Sep 5, 2010

JCamry94 said:
Yeah I thought that balancing the damn wheels would do the trick! I got it done at America's Tire Co. and I have NEVER had a bad experience there!

I still have the full size spare in the back right to keep it away from the drive wheels, but I'm gonna get it back off and have all the same sizes on there again.

The spare is a 205/70/14 and the rest of them are 195/70/14s. I have one more steel rim that just needs a new tire on it. I figure I will get that one on their and have all the wheels balanced. Should that work?

i guess so. having one wheel mismatched may cause weird things on highway. keep them all same for best results and yeah, re-balance all of them and watch how they spin in the machine. you will see when they wobble, you need to keep those in the rear and the straight ones in front. balancing will not fix a wobbling rim completely, it will only minimize its effects.

last time I used tirerack.com to find recommended installers in my area and while i was browsing details for the best i noticed the one which was cheap and had the best equipment available. he fixed my ride, it was his idea (Nick at Mobile Sound, Clifton, NJ) to keep poorer wheels in the rear after re-balancing all of them. it worked.

fenixus

· #9 · Sep 5, 2010 (Edited)

JCamry94 said:
Ahh okay. I wasn't sure if you meant visibly bent or what. To be honest I haven't the first idea about balancing numbers, how do I ask/determine which are the worst of the bunch? Being limited to 65-70 on the highway blows, and besides I've been much more before in my cam, and there were no vibrations! Hah

if alignment is good then re-balancing is next step. if that fails (and you need to be sure it was REALLY done right) you can start looking for suspension trouble somewhere, anything like a loose tie rod or something else down there may cause vibrations too ... but finding the source may take some time and effort...

as chris said, having the car's front jacked up try moving/shaking the wheel while holding it horizontally (9 & 3 o'clock positions) and vertically (12 & 6 o'clock), there should be no movements at all on neither of wheels.

peshwa

· #10 · Sep 5, 2010

JCamry94
It could be your CV halfshafts. What brand CV axle did you put in? Did you yourself swap out the axle?
My front driver axle gave me immense grief for past 8 months now. I finally went to Pick N Pull, pulled out similar axle off of a 93 Camry. Swapped out my current Kragen $hit axle with the 17-year old toyota OEM and it significantly reduced my vibrations to the point its not noticeable at all over 65 MPH.
I did this yesterday hence its fresh in my mind.
My 2 cents.

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JCamry94

Discussion Starter · #11 · Sep 5, 2010 (Edited)

peshwa said:
JCamry94
It could be your CV halfshafts. What brand CV axle did you put in? Did you yourself swap out the axle?
My front driver axle gave me immense grief for past 8 months now. I finally went to Pick N Pull, pulled out similar axle off of a 93 Camry. Swapped out my current Kragen $hit axle with the 17-year old toyota OEM and it significantly reduced my vibrations to the point its not noticeable at all over 65 MPH.
I did this yesterday hence its fresh in my mind.
My 2 cents.

Sears did the axle work for me! I thought it would be an alright axle if they did it :-/

Here's my conclusion thus far; I noticed vibrations before the axles were replaced, and also after. They've been going on ever since I changed out my flat and had two slightly different diameter tires on. So I have to assume that in doing so caused my vibrations. But how do I fix that which I don't know? Hah thanks guys.

Frodo65

· #12 · Sep 6, 2010

JCamry94 said:
Hey guys... So!

About 2-3 months ago my right front tire was impaled by a screw on the highway. The air pressure was completely lost after a few days and then I'd have to refill it. I didn't have the cash to fix it, so I put my full sized spare in its place. The spare was 10 mm wider than the other front tire, buy I didn't think much of it. Shortly after I hit the highway and began noticing a strong vibration from the front end over 60 mph... So I got my other same sized tire repaired and put that in place of the spare. This seemed to make the vibration stronger, but more centered (meaning I felt it then only underneath the pedals). In the following weeks I tried to diagnose the best I could and came up with only a few options.

So this leads me up to just a couple weeks ago. One of my inner cv boots was torn, so I got the half shaft and it both replaced. After, I took the car for an alignment, which I thought would solve the issue. When I went up in speeds the vibration was still present, but much less harsh. However I now noticed it between the 40-50 mph range as well as the 65+ mph speeds. This puzzled the hell out of me so I took what I thought would be my final measure to stop this vibration...

So yesterday I took time out to get my front tires completely balanced, as I was told that this may affect the smoothness of the ride. Now as it stands my car still vibrates at certain speeds (less jarring than before however). According to my speedo, the hot spots are from 43-50 mph and then 70+ mph.

I have seemingly done everything possible to remedy my situation and it's still not working out for me. What did I do to my poor front end? And what if anything can I do to completely rid my camry of terrible vibrations? Thanks guys

Find someone who has a clue.

The car will 'shimmy the wheel' for relatively few reasons:

Dynamic balance - the rotating assembly is not in balance, either radially or laterally. Radial balance is relatively easy to remedy, and the 'limited training' techs will call it a day when the machine tells them where to stick the weights. Lateral imbalance is harder to solve with the 'stick-on' weights - a price of fashion for a 'smooth' wheel lip. The lateral imbalance will cause a wheel 'wobble', and gets worse as bearings and suspension parts gets sloppy with age.
Dirt/mud on the inner wheel surface. Should be easy to spot - and easy to clean off.
Bad tire. The wobble will follow the tire after it's been rotated.
Rotating assembly run-out, either radial or lateral. Radial run-out can be caused by the hub 'slop' or missing hub spacer rings (if you got aftermarket wheels). A run-out gauge will help a competent tech figure out what the deal is. Problem could also be in the tire being out of round - 1 or 2 skidding stops (for non-ABS-equipped cars) can get a tire sufficiently out of round to 'shake'. Tires can be 'trued', at a cost of some tread life.
Bent wheel. Bend doesn't have to be severe, but will show up on excessive run-out. Again, this would 'move' when the wheel/tire is moved, and show up in runout readings.
Marginal/worn suspension parts. Typically tie rod ends (either inner or outer), but could also be strut or bushings. This isn't highly probable, and a tech should have checked for this during alignment.
Axles out of alignment, or rebuilt with 'bad' components, i.e. 'bent'. Look at the 'jack axle' going to the right - any competent tech would have checked this prior to half-shaft replacement.
Bad mounts for engine/suspension. This would likely cause other symptoms (like a rough, vibrations at idle) .

The first thing is to find a competent tech to check the car out and fix only the things that are broken (and not throw parts at it until it goes away).

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JCamry94

Discussion Starter · #13 · Sep 6, 2010 (Edited)

Frodo65 said:
Find someone who has a clue.

The car will 'shimmy the wheel' for relatively few reasons:

Dynamic balance - the rotating assembly is not in balance, either radially or laterally. Radial balance is relatively easy to remedy, and the 'limited training' techs will call it a day when the machine tells them where to stick the weights. Lateral imbalance is harder to solve with the 'stick-on' weights - a price of fashion for a 'smooth' wheel lip. The lateral imbalance will cause a wheel 'wobble', and gets worse as bearings and suspension parts gets sloppy with age.

Dirt/mud on the inner wheel surface. Should be easy to spot - and easy to clean off.

Bad tire. The wobble will follow the tire after it's been rotated.

Rotating assembly run-out, either radial or lateral. Radial run-out can be caused by the hub 'slop' or missing hub spacer rings (if you got aftermarket wheels). A run-out gauge will help a competent tech figure out what the deal is. Problem could also be in the tire being out of round - 1 or 2 skidding stops (for non-ABS-equipped cars) can get a tire sufficiently out of round to 'shake'. Tires can be 'trued', at a cost of some tread life.

Bent wheel. Bend doesn't have to be severe, but will show up on excessive run-out. Again, this would 'move' when the wheel/tire is moved, and show up in runout readings.

Marginal/worn suspension parts. Typically tie rod ends (either inner or outer), but could also be strut or bushings. This isn't highly probable, and a tech should have checked for this during alignment.

Axles out of alignment, or rebuilt with 'bad' components, i.e. 'bent'. Look at the 'jack axle' going to the right - any competent tech would have checked this prior to half-shaft replacement.

Bad mounts for engine/suspension. This would likely cause other symptoms (like a rough, vibrations at idle) .

The first thing is to find a competent tech to check the car out and fix only the things that are broken (and not throw parts at it until it goes away).

Finding a 'competent' tech will be the fun part

I guess I can do some of these checks myself like fenixus mentioned about the re-balance. I can narrow it down more so at that point. For now these are the most likely culprits:

Balance, axle problem, bad tire (or out of round tire), or a bent wheel. The rest don't apply so hopefully in the coming weeks I can figure out the true issue!

Question: which of these would be caused by having two slightly different sized (width wise) tires on the drive wheels? Because I still stand by the theory that in doing so caused my vibrations.

Thanks man!

Frodo65

· #14 · Sep 6, 2010

JCamry94 said:
Finding a 'competent' tech will be the fun part

I guess I can do some of these checks myself like fenixus mentioned about the re-balance. I can narrow it down more so at that point. For now these are the most likely culprits:

Balance, axle problem, bad tire (or out of round tire), or a bent wheel. The rest dint apply so hopefully in the coming weeks I can figure out the true issue!

Question: which of these would be caused by having two slightly different sized (width wise) tires on the drive wheels? Because I still stand by the theory that in doing so caused my vibrations.

Thanks man!

Maybe the axles - different size wheels rotate at different rates, putting a tiny bit of strain on the differential. I'd consider that highly unlikely. Camry has an open diff - a limited slip might heat up a mite and start 'chattering', but that's not possible in a Camry.

Now, if you drove on the 'flat tire' - that could easily bend a wheel. Also, to be clear - is the 'repaired' tire on the front? It's possible that the nail 'cut' a belt cord, causing the wobble. Also, how was the tire repaired? With a 'plug' through the tread, or by a 'patch', where the tire was dismounted and a patch placed on the inside? I consider plugs 'dicey', because you can't see any problems that the puncture might cause, e.g. cord 'snags' or 'breaks'.

As the 'KISS test', did you try rotating the tires and see if the vibration 'moved'?

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peshwa

· #15 · Sep 6, 2010

Thanks Frodo65. Could we add "Wheel Bearings" as a root cause too? Especially toyota sedans have non serviceable sealed wheel bearings that may get contaminated with age and inner and outer wheel bearing seals giving out?

Frodo65

· #16 · Sep 6, 2010

peshwa said:
Thanks Frodo65. Could we add "Wheel Bearings" as a root cause too? Especially toyota sedans have non serviceable sealed wheel bearings that may get contaminated with age and inner and outer wheel bearing seals giving out?

Yes, but it would be a coincidence - swapping wheels is unlikely to kill a bearing. Now, it's quite possible to kill a bearing (sharp 'hit' on pothole with a flat tire can do it), but a bad bearing will 'speak up' and make its presence known - I've not seen one 'wobble and be quiet'.

JCamry94

Discussion Starter · #17 · Sep 6, 2010

Frodo65 said:
Maybe the axles - different size wheels rotate at different rates, putting a tiny bit of strain on the differential. I'd consider that highly unlikely. Camry has an open diff - a limited slip might heat up a mite and start 'chattering', but that's not possible in a Camry.

Now, if you drove on the 'flat tire' - that could easily bend a wheel. Also, to be clear - is the 'repaired' tire on the front? It's possible that the nail 'cut' a belt cord, causing the wobble. Also, how was the tire repaired? With a 'plug' through the tread, or by a 'patch', where the tire was dismounted and a patch placed on the inside? I consider plugs 'dicey', because you can't see any problems that the puncture might cause, e.g. cord 'snags' or 'breaks'.

As the 'KISS test', did you try rotating the tires and see if the vibration 'moved'?

The only reason why I am being so persistent on the changing of the wheels causing my problems is just simply because before I did, I had no issues! Logic doesn't want me to accept other problems as the actual cause, though I am probably mistaken.

The repaired tire is on the front, yes. To the best of my knowledge the nail hole was patched after its removal.

I'm starting to lean toward it being a bent rim, mainly because though I never rode on a truly flat tire I definitely recall hitting bumps seemingly harder than usual since there was a lack of air pressure.

As far as rotating goes I can't quite yet. As it stands the two front tires (including the repaired one) are the newest of the bunch, and have the most tread. In the back I have one the same size as the fronts with considerably less tread and my full sized (and differently sized from the others) spare. I have one other rim with yet another nail in it (lots if nails in my town) that matches the other three that I plan on getting repaired and put on.

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Frodo65

· #18 · Sep 6, 2010

JCamry94 said:
The only reason why I am being so persistent on the changing of the wheels causing my problems is just simply because before I did, I had no issues! Logic doesn't want me to accept other problems as the actual cause, though I am probably mistaken.

The repaired tire is on the front, yes. To the best of my knowledge the nail hole was patched after its removal.

I'm starting to lean toward it being a bent rim, mainly because though I never rode on a truly flat tire I definitely recall hitting bumps seemingly harder than usual since there was a lack of air pressure.

As far as rotating goes I can't quite yet. As it stands the two front tires (including the repaired one) are the newest of the bunch, and have the most tread. In the back I have one the same size as the fronts with considerably less tread and my full sized (and differently sized from the others) spare. I have one other rim with yet another nail in it (lots if nails in my town) that matches the other three that I plan on getting repaired and put on.

I suggested rotation as a 'nearly free' diagnostic tool - if the vibration follows the wheel/tire, you've got your answer.

If the picture with your post is accurate and up-to-date, you have aftermarket wheels. Double-check the hub spacers - these cars use 'hub-centric' mounting, and if the hub isn't 'right-n-tight', you'll get all sorts of funky vibrations. Careless 'tire monkeys' will 'lose' spacers as they can fall out or be knocked out by the machines. If the guy's 'zoning' or hung over, the hub spacer can be easy to overlook.

JCamry94

Discussion Starter · #19 · Sep 9, 2010

Frodo65 said:
I suggested rotation as a 'nearly free' diagnostic tool - if the vibration follows the wheel/tire, you've got your answer.

If the picture with your post is accurate and up-to-date, you have aftermarket wheels. Double-check the hub spacers - these cars use 'hub-centric' mounting, and if the hub isn't 'right-n-tight', you'll get all sorts of funky vibrations. Careless 'tire monkeys' will 'lose' spacers as they can fall out or be knocked out by the machines. If the guy's 'zoning' or hung over, the hub spacer can be easy to overlook.

Yeah sorry, that's actually an old pic. I have the stock 14" steelies on now.

Here's my question. Today when I get home from school I'm going to put on my two 17s, and see if it still vibrates. If it still does what is my next step?

Thanks for all if your feedback thus far, I appreciate it!

Chris Crash

· #20 · Sep 9, 2010

Alignment. Tie Rods. Steering rack maybe.

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