steering wheel slight vibration high speed???

[marcus]

yah??

[marcus]

still getting the shimmy on 60-65mph ..slight vibration on the steering wheel..could it be due to me going to 16x7 and wider tires as well..vs stock.. can our yaris get a 4 wheel allignment..i know some cannot be done on the rear..

[Loren]

What exactly have you done so far to fix the problem?

(hint: start by having the tires rebalanced)

[marcus]

pumped the tire on an even psi for all four..but before that it was rebalanced all four.. but i was told to jsut drive it for a while "break in" so im still waiting to hit atleast 500 kms.. steering vibration is not that bad but id rather not have it..the rear end does looked like its more slanted than stock. angled in i guess due to wider tires..

[Loren]

Your alignment has nothing to do with the vibration. (I said that once already, but it bears repeating)

Your new tires have affected your alignment in no way.

Tire vibration issues are not cured by "breaking in" the tires.

If the shop that mounted your tires isn't capable of properly balancing your tires (not that uncommon, really), find one that is.

Sports car folks swear by the Hunter GSP9700, you might find a shop that has one. Of course, even the best equipment (this goes for wheel balancing as well as alignment) is only as good as the tech that's using it.

The GSP9700 is a "road force" balancer. It doesn't just "spin up" the wheel, it has a roller that simulates the force of the road and does a much better job of balancing the tire.

In my experience, a good tech that gives a shit about what he's doing and approaches the job with a goal of "perfect balance using the least possible weights" instead of "just slap weights on where the machine says to and if the blinking light says it's okay, even if it's .25 oz off, send it out the door" can get the job done with even low-tech equipment. Sometimes breaking the bead on the tire and rotating it 90 degrees to adjust for imperfections in the wheel and tire can help these problems... most techs aren't willing to do it, even when it's the right thing to do.

[marcus]

ok i got local tire place that had the GSP9700 machine.. $80.00 cnd to balance all four though..yikes i dont mindpaying that assuming that they can fix the issue..

[marcus]

UPDATE!! rebalance by gsp9700.. got better but still that slight vibration on the steering wheel unless ive always had it...the previous balance weight did come off again so hope this stays and the minimal vibration aint too bad to deal with wel shall see..

[aucorium]

hey buddy , i had a similar problem a while back.

the solution was that one of the spicot rings that go inside the rim when going on the hub was missing , and the other one was the incorrect one making that the wheel wasnt on properly. check the spicot rings , the usually little round plastic rings , make sure they work with that specific wheel , and that they fit in flush , if not , then that is your prob.

[Loren]

A cheap plastic centering ring that's not a proper fit or wasn't installed properly and interfered with fitment can be a problem. Otherwise, with lug-centric wheels (acorn style lug nuts) centering rings are completely unnecessary and it doesn't matter if they are there or not. I've run many different aftermarket wheels on many different cars without them and never had a problem with balance or anything else on the street or the track.

The centering rings make it easier to put the wheel on the car and serve no other engineering purpose. The lug nuts actually center the wheel. I've seen an engineer's analysis of this. There are two arguments for hub centering rings on lug-centric wheels: centering and load-bearing.

1. Modern wheels are machined with the lug holes cut to the same centering tolerances as the center bore, this is not an issue.

2. The centerbore is not relevant to supporting the weight of the car. The car is supported by the friction between the wheel and the hub that results from the clamping force of the lug nut torque. Interesting and surprisingly understandable "back of the envelope" calculations attached. (Derived by Lance Schall, as posted to Miata.net a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.)

[marcus]

wow its like high school all over again..

[Loren]

Well, yeah... except this is IMPORTANT stuff!

[soloecho2]

Thanks Loren. After listening to way too many opinions I was starting to doubt myself on the whole Hubcentric thing. Thanks for the sanity check.

[YarisSedan]

Your missing hub centric rings. So the wheel is not centered on the hub. Its equivelent to having a bent rim. Its going to get worse and eventually your wheel will fall off. I used to work at a tire shop we would get them all the time. We would do a tire rotion and then customer would complain of horrible vibration. Because the wheel would be slightly off center. We would get 2 people one person hold the wheel as centered as possible on the hub while someone else quickly zips them down. Its never going to be perefect centered without the ring but it would be better.

[marcus]

all rings are intact and proper sizes..

[henrystyle]

I know this thread is old but I am having the same exact problem. Going to have all 4 tires high speed balanced in the morning.. We shall see if that solves the problem. I have stock rims with new stock size tires. Hopefully the problem goes away..