ok, so iv had that lowering vibration for about a month, and someone on here said he took his in for a four wheel alignment and it was fixed. I did that, my guy fixed a couple things but, he said i would need rear control arms and camber plates to fix the problem, he gave me specs and the left side of the car front and rear he said he needed cambers and control arms.

Any ideas if this does solve the solution or if it will help the vibration. It gets really bad when i go over 50 mph. I know stuff has been posted before but its kinda a new subject with these ideas so, if anyone knwos lemme know

 

Does it sound like youre in a wind tunnel? I have something unexplainable and only heard by certain people when they drive to me that occurs around 50-80 mph and its like a gyrating vibration noise. Happens with both sets of wheels I have too..

 

Is your car lowered?

 

Sounds more like a tire balance problem.
But if you did lower your car, your front toe and rear camber are probably off. The front toe can be adjusted by the alignment shop. The front camber is not adjustable but should not be off by much and if off should not cause a vibration. Stock my left front was -0.2 degrees and my right front was -1.7 degress (which is way out of spec) and I had no vibration. Depending on the year (2005 and up) your rear camber is adjustable. If you have an earlier year Mini you would need adjustable lower control arms to adjust the rear camber to compensate for the lowering. However, the rear negative camber should not cause a vibration and the amount of rear negative camber induced by lowering is usually livable but can wear the inside edge of your tires. If the rear tires wear more than is acceptable than you can add adjustable lower rear control arms. Without the adjustable control arms the alignment shop will not be able to get the rear camber into spec (after lowering) but that is not per se a problem that has to be fixed.

 

Agreed. Sounds MUCH more like a un-balanced wheel/tire setup.

- Matt

 

Thanks guys, that pretty much correlates with what the alignment guy said, contorl arms and camber plates to adjust, i will inquire about unbalanced wheels. Do you think tires are affecting it? i have pirelli runflats, with s-lite factory wheels.

Any one else have any thoughts?

 

Maybe you lost a wheel weight which caused a tire/wheel to go out of balance. Also, sometimes as the tire wears an usually heavy or light spot is removed, which throws off the balance.

 

I am new to the minination but have plenty of antique chevy cars and trucks- in no way does alignment cause vibrations- alignment deals with vehicle pull- uneven tire wear- uncentered steering wheel- most vibration comes from not proper balanced tires. Could also be other problems- harmonic balancer- pulleys and such but not alignment