Hi, All,

We have a 2016 MCS Countryman, and we replaced the tires on Saturday morning. That afternoon I had the wheels aligned at the dealership. On the way home I noticed a wheel wobble every time I slightly turn the wheel to the right. (My wife describes it as a jerking feeling.) It wasn't doing this before the alignment. Could the alignment have been done incorrectly? Would that cause this?

Thank you!

 

I would check the lug bolts are torqued properly, and also check the tire pressures.

 

Next thing to do is find a reliable independent MINI/German motors shop. There's gotta be some good ones in Ok City.
If the stealership was reliable, they would have given it a test drive and found the problem before you did.

 

My wife needed it for work this afternoon, so I checked the lugs during lunch. They were extremely over tightened. I started by tightening them, but none of them moved even a hair, which usually after driving them 40-50 miles I have one or two lugs that move ever so slightly when torquing them. It seemed strange, so I decided to loosen a wheel and retorque. Some were about right, and some were way too tight. It took a lot of grunting to get them to break lose, which is unreal. I loosened them and went back with the torque wrench, and they still were over the 103 ft-lbs recommended by MINI. Loosened again, and they were still over 103. All the wheels were like this. As far as I had to move them to get them below 103, there's no telling how far they were over torqued. (I wouldn't be surprised if they were in the 125-150 range.) That said, I'm not sure if this would cause the problem. My wife ended up not needing to leave the house. We both work from home, so we may take it for a spin before dinner.

 

We use Jackie Cooper in OKC, and I've been using them for almost two decades now. I trust them, so if something's wrong, I would assume it was a fluke of some kind. They've always been pretty stellar at taking care of business, and it's the only place I've had good luck getting the MINIs aligned correctly. There is a shop in Norman, which is south of OKC, and we've had descent luck with them too. However, it's a ways from us. We used to live in New Jersey, so we used Helix, which was nice. I miss that place.

 

Having those bolts over torqued in the extreme like that, I'd be a little suspicious of their reliability caused by possible thread distortion. Things can't have changed so much over those 10 years between yours and mine, my owner's manual suggests 90#. And yea, after rotating them every 5K I take it around the bypass and recheck torque for any variance usually finding one or two a bit off. Tire replacement is another story. I've got to be there and make sure my tire guy doesn't over torque. I always re-do them when I get home anyway.

 

We took it for a drive last night, and the wobble is still there...only when you barely turn the wheel, like for a lane change. We're going to take it back and have them look at it. The wheels were installed at a fairly well-known national tire chain. One that we've also used for a long time, so I'm not sure what happened.

 

I would next try and rotate the tires to see if that changes anything. It it only happens just off center, maybe there is a small imperfection in the construction of one of the tires.