about 6 months ago, i had my alignment done. steering wheel shook and car pulled strongly to the side. took it to another shop (same retailer), and they fixed the problem in less than 10 minutes. I don't think they even took it up on the lift.
recently, i got a new set of wheels and tires. mounted them myself, steering is straight as anything but get some shaking in the steering wheel.
figured, maybe the wheels were not balanced correctly, so took it to the shop to have wheels balanced.

steering wheel still shakes.

shaking seems to happen at all speeds, and have not noticed a drastic increase in shake at higher speeds. Wife reports no shaking on braking.
took it to the shop, they said the front brake pads needed replacement. and the rotors were ok, but wouldn't hurt to be turned down and brake fluid flushed.
took it to the other shop, they didn't say anything about the brakes, but said to maybe change to front struts.
I'm thinking I should go ahead and swap out the front brake pads for some raybestos, i looked at them, and they are looking kinda worn. rotors looked fine to me. calipers looked ok.
don't know how to test the front struts, but did notice that the plastic shielding was detached from struts when i did the tire swap.

more information: the passenger front and passenger rear tire were seriously in bad shape before replacement. the rear drivers side tire was ok, the front drivers side tire looks brand new.

my question is: what did the second shop do in less than 10 minutes to get it to stop shaking in the first place?
and how to repeat that.

 

Probably over weighted the wheels. But sounds to me like your rim(s) are bent and out of true round. That accounts for the more violent shaking at higher speeds. Run over a curb, parking berm, speed bump or big pothole?

 

Hey Zee, how many miles are on this MINI? 1st thing I'd do is rotate the tires front to back and see if the issue moves. IF so you may have a bad tire, new doesnt mean good.

 

48,000.
really don't think its the tires, since it did the same thing between the alignment on old set of tires and mystery fix at tire place a few days after.


wheel balance line to 0.
attempted tire rotation at time of balance with no difference.

"have not noticed a drastic increase in shake at higher speed" shake not related to speed as far as I can tell.

what can be done to a tire(s) in only a couple minutes to remove steering wheel vibration?

 

why not ask the tire place?



lower control arm bushings???? A common problem on GEN1 but I'm not sure how it was magicly fixed at a tire shop if this is the cause. Maybe a pure coincidence of jacking it up.

You can also have tread separation in a tire - this will cause the tire to be out of round. Most commonly I recognize this a a 'thump' I hear, but steering wheel vibration is also possible. But again ... I dunno HOW a shop could have made this go away w/out replacing the bad tire. My A1 tire guy said he would not look for - or notice this unless told to be on the look out 4 it.

 

It could be a bad tie rod or a bad wheel bearing.

 

Thanks,
going to try:
1.
rotate tire front to back to see if vibration moves from steering (would indication a bad wheel)
2.
don't think its a control arm bushing, as it seems non-dependent on speed or braking, but will test further.
3.
wheel bearing. tested when i was originally adding tires, gave each a good tug, no noise in turns/corner
4.
shocks, my test for shocks is if the car bounces back immediately after a good push down to auto body, then they are ok.

Thanks for the call Dustin.

it may be magic 10 minute fix could've been a loose lug nut originally. what are usually the first things the shop tries? tire pressure and lug attachments, tire direction indicator on tires, nails, ect.
the old lugs and holes looked good except for 1 lug nut on last good looking tire was torked too high.

 

Is your car lowered? If the angle of the axle to the CV joint gets too severe in "some" Mini cars, you can get a vibration or shutter.

 

Sorry BEAVR.

FWIW I have had a problem with the wheel shaking/vibration too. OUR problem (after balancing/alignment) has been tire pressure. I know it sounds simple... maybe the reason why it only took 10 minutes for the shop to fix?

I usually run my tires at 38psi. (I don't have runflats.) I have one tire that tends to lose a little bit of air (maybe slightly leaky valve stem). Anyway I've noticed that if the tires are off even by 2psi there can be a change in driving. (The husband tends not to believe this... he always thinks we need a balance. Funny though... once we put the air in... the vibration is mysteriously gone.)

Just yesterday after the car had been sitting in the garage for about 4 days... we started driving to the airport and I noticed that the car felt funny. I was thinking "we should check the pressure". The vibration in the steering wheel and the car was slight until about 50mph but it was starting to make my hand feel numb from the shaking. I pull out of my neighborhood onto a 60mph road so I knew once I hit that 50-70mph range that we had a problem. Stopped at the closest gas station and sure enough the air was 35psi in one and 36 psi in another. We filled them up to the same 38psi... jumped in the car and the vibration was gone.

If you had one or two tires that were slightly underinflated... that would cause different wear patterns. I know it probably sounds stupid... but hey it's worth looking at.

Good luck!

 

I am having this problem also. I just purchased a new set of wheels and tires. I went from 15" wheels to 17". The tires are Falkens. After I left the shop the virbation was bad. I have had it back three times, twice just today. They finally said it is as good as they could get it. If I still wasn't satisfied after this weekend they would trade the tires. They said sometimes a certain tire will not work with a certain make of car. They swear by the balance. They were pressure balanced on Hunter equipment.

I have not heard of this before but if they are willing to trade the tires out I am all for it.

I have a slight shimmy at 47 to 53mph. You can't feel it in the car just the steering wheel.

TomH

 

As stated earlier, the tire may be balanced, but may not be round. Simple test. Drive several miles to get the tires warm and eliminate a flat spot from sitting in one place all night. Jack up one tire at a time and place an object very close to the middle of the tread, say 1/8 inch. Slowly turn the tire by hand and observe the runout, does the tire get closer and further away from the stationary object. It will be obvious pretty quickly if your tires are round or not. Do this for all four tires.

YD

 

I've only ever had a problem with the steering wheel shaking (a lot) when I'm stopped and idling in D like at an intersection. Always has.

 

PRetty much every shaking thing I know if would be speed related. Even if it's something like the control arm bushing, what exites the shaking is speed related.

TomH had his done on a Hunter Roadforce machine, so out of round, and hardspots on the tire would have bene found by that. At least in his case.

Frankly, ball joints, tie rods and bushings seem to be the most likely to me. Maybe wheel bearings. Things in the brakes, tires and wheels are most definantly speed related.

FWIW, bad shaking at abou 60 MPH +/- some is really indicitive of a tire balance issue... Also struts going soft can do this as well.

Matt

 

Something that might help the OP. I just spoke with the shop that installed my wheels and tires. I was scheduled for another balance today. After doing some on-line research last night I realized that Minis are hub centric and the wheels they installed are lug centric. I asked them about hub centric rings and they ordered a set for me.

They should be in on Monday, so I will post an update to see if this solves the shaking steering wheel issue.

This may also help the OP with his problem.

There is a company called justforwheels.com that sells hub centric rings. They are about $40.00 for 4.

TomH

 

yep, have the hub centric rings installed as part of the wheels.
been having some other problems with it, so haven't given it a full work out. changed front brake pads yesterday. increased all of my air to 40psi (was at 26). I think the shake is mostly gone, feel it now somewhere at 60mph and at 45ish. think its mainly alot more road vibration i am getting in the thinner tires. getting a little bit more left pull now too where it was straight.
what could the shop have done after the initial alignment in about 10 minutes? can't really find out from shop until after the summer people leave, even if they would know.
for a comparitive drive, I opened up the old Trans Am. compared to the Pontiac, the mini drives like a cadillac. If I wasn't concentrating on noticing a vibration/shake, don't think that I would even know it was there.

 

they'd do in 10 min is re-torque the wheels, maybe check air pressure.

Matt

 

intermittent problem pretty much went away when I changed out the rear brake shoes.
earlier I had noticed that a quick steering shift at high speeds would remove the vibration.
hope it doesn't come back, but at least it didn't cause any tire cupping or damage to the vehicle.

 

finally found a diagnosis of tie rods.
front wheels shake.
ruined both sets of tires I've had on, but now at least I have a clue about how to remedy.
any idea where to get tie rods and if there is a write for for DIY?

 

I use Classic Auto Campus, they are a vendor here and give 20% NAM discount.

Matt