Installed H-Sport springs Monday night and have picked up a slight vibration when accellerating thru 4000 rpm.

Took it to Mini service and they say that because I have changed the geometry slightly, the CV joint is working at a slightly different angle and the bearing is "out of the groove" that is has worn in the first 10,000 miles of its life.

They suspect that it will go away as the new set up gets comfy with it's new home.

This all sounds very reasonable to me but was wondering if anyone else that has lowered their car has experienced the same thing and did the vibration go away as the tech suggests?

 

it's more like a vibrate from the stiffer springs.

 

If the vibration wasn't there before the spring change then something is changed. One idea is to make sure that the toe settings front and rear are within stock range and not off on one side or the other. This is done by a full alignment check.

Next, you can try on another set of wheels if you have a set or can borrow one. This would eliminate the wheels as a cause of the vibration. so with the new set of known good wheels the vibration is still there then I could be what they say. I'd try the wheels first. If the vibration goes away then one of your old wheels might need balancing- also check for roundness on all tires.

Also check that all suspension connections are tight and not over tightened.
That no bolts or nuts are missing or that any of the parts are bent or loose in any way.

If the new tires are all OK and the vibration is still there then changing the toe settings to something like 1/16" out in the front and 1/16" toe in for the rear might help work with the altered camber.

Your camber at -0.6 degrees (normal is -0.1 to -0.9) in the front and -2.0 (normal is -1.0 to -2.0) in the rear is still in the stock alignment range! So you have not done that much to cause this problem. I could see if you were -2.4 degrees in the rear but you are not.
Most other MINIs that are dropped do not get any vibration as you have described. Good luck.

 

I have also had the Harmonic Balancer replaced with regards to another thread on NAM (Ticking noise over 4000rpm) and that was what I thought caused the vibration.

The tech stats that when the car is brought to a rev range that causes the vibration and he pushes in the clutch. the vibration goes away. My thought is that if it were indeed in the CV joint the vibration would be there all the time, not just at a particular rev range . Is that logical?

I am picking up the car from the shop today and will speak more with the SA and tech if I can.

 

if the vibe happens at the same rpm, regardless of gear, then it isn't driveline related; that includes everthing from the output side of the trans to the wheels.

If it happens at the same road speed, regardless of gear, then it probably is drivetrain related.

pressing in the clutch can change the way driveline elements are loaded, so a driven part becomes a coasting part, for example. that action also takes up slack in the throwout bearing and puts an axial load on the crank.

could be simply a rattling throwout bearing. try very lightly pressing on the clutch just enough to take out the slack and see what that does to the vibe.

 

......did you happen to rotate your wheels during the spring change?

 

jlm brings up a great first check - to determine whether it's drivetrain or engine. Check RPM vs. MPH vs. gear and let us know exactly where and how the vibration occurs.

My instinct says you didn't torque part of the strut correctly during reassembly, and it's causing a MPH based resonance in the steering knuckles.

In any case, no suspension change, provided it's installed correctly, should induce a driveline vibration, and especially not something as simple as a spring-rate change.

 

Before I picked up the car today I would have said that the vibration was in the RPM range and not MPH specific. Starting at about 4700rpm in 2nd, then each gear up through the gear box at about 4000rpm.


After picking the car up today, in which the only thing that was done was the harmonic balancer, again the vibration doesn't seem to be there or at least no where near as noticable.

The tech that did the work and provided his theory stats that because we have lowered it the angle of the drive shaft is slightly different thus the CV joint is not running in the "groove" that has been created during the previous 10,000 miles. He suspects as I put some miles on it the vibration will go away as a "new groove" is worn in.

I have run the engine all the way up to 5500rpm in neutral and haven't been able to create the vibration which leads me to believe he may have something.

We'll have to keep a real close eye and ear on it and see what happens.

BTW I LOVE the new suspension. We're going to kick some Vette *** this weekend .

 

Would you get the vibrate again if you put the factory springs back on the car?

 

Assuming that is the problem, probably not. The reason for this thread is to see if anyone else has encountered the same thing or something similar and how they dealt with it.

 

I don't buy it. If the CV's indeed had a distinct wear groove, this would be a faulty part, and your driveline would vibrate or have "stiction" with EVERY SINGLE undulation and bump you hit in the road. No offense to the MINI tech, but they're blowing smoke yet again

Yup - the H-Sport's are still the best production spring set on the market to improve handling.

Cheers,
Ryan

 

Not sure if anyone is still watching this thread, but I have the exact same issue happening - lowered with H-Sports (not that spring choice matters in this regard) and now I get a strong vibration when accelerating hard in third gear (notice it about 3500 - 4000 RPM too). I have done several things to the car prior to this, including the 2% Alta crank pulley to get rid of the failing Harmonic Balancer that the dealer wouldn't address, and had no issues prior to this. Oddly enough, I didn't notice it in the first 100 miles of driving, so maybe there is a loose bolt - I will check that.

However, my current theory is that the clutch plate may have a pad that has separated or lost a rivet and is causing it to hook up to the pressure plate off kilter, because the one thing I notice is that if I shift easily to 3rd, and then hammer down, I don't always feel the vibration, but hard driving seems to create this pretty consistently.

I also don't feel it the same way in other gears, but that may be a product of 1) not enough time in the lower gears and 2) not enough opportunity in the higher ones.

I'll continue my research, but if someone else has any ideas, I'm all ears (or eyes, as it were )

 

hey guy im new to this do im not really good at it but i got a 05mcs and i jsut lowerd it whit the tein coilovers and i have the viberating problem if any one found out how to get read of it pleas help me out here thank u

 

I have the exact same problem.
I was wondering if it is my rear wheels that are rubbing?
One of my friends suggested me to go for a alignment check.
Tell you guys how it goes after I done that.

 

I doubt it is an alignment issue, as I cannot get this to reproduce on a consistent basis, but I am still interested to hear the results. I still suspect a clutch issue - any one else out there see this problem?

 

got the same vibration after installing my Tein coilover also. have the alignment done and it still vibrates, so I took it to a friend of mine and he told me it was the tires. After driving it for about 2 weeks the problem is gone. It could be the tires. How long have you had the coilovers?

 

i had mine about 3 weeks i changed the back control armes and i got the kmac camber plats instaled but i ran in to a littil problem whit the stupid camber plates they suck so i got the h sport one im getin instaled tom then im goin to get aligment and see what happens so far i still got the vibration but i havnt got aligmen becuz of the camber plast i hop after instain the h sports and getin aligment it goes away

 

well i got my camber plates put on and alighment and i sitll have the vibration but i found this good machanic for minis im takin it to hime monday so he could look at it so lets see if he could find the problem

 

get the tires re-balanced and rotated. I installed the m7 uss and did the tires and no more vibrations.

 

well the viberation snt the un balanched tire kind
i found this geat mini mechanin he tok a look at it and sad its form the axles he sad id they dont do it the right way then they takin hte strats out some thing happen to the axel whice im goin to take it to the dealer tom so they could changed it and wel see how it goes after it changed so tell u guess how it goes

 

Lowering a car will indeed take the CV joints outside their operational range, especially when cornering and braking. There is a great article about this in the Feb or Mar. issue of Grass Roots magazine. The reasoning your Mini service tech used is correct. CV joints do infact wear and the clicking we associate with worn CV joints is from the bearings jumping in and out of the 'worn' groove.

The degree of this problem is no doubt dependent on ride height and spring rate.

This may or may not be related to the vibration you site. But keep an eye on your CV joints nonetheless.

Personally, I'm not sold on the H-Sports becasue while they lower the car - not a bad thing obviously - the front spring rates are lighter than stock. This will, as written above, affect CV joint angles under braking especially, but also during cornering. And, in a not so related subject to this thread, lowering a mac strut increases roll couple. You must use higher spring rates to compensate for this very real and very important force if you wish to control this increase in roll force. The balance may be there given the spread in spring rates front to rear, but H-Sport should have and could have compensated for increased roll couple while maintaining the exact balance. This would have required stiffer springs all around, obviously.

 

ya i toke it to the dealer to day and they goin to replace the CV joints thats what when bad on it so ill find out if that was it or not when i get the car back

 

Interestingly enough, I installed different wheels & tires (SSR GT7 + Kumho Ecsta MX - both used) and the vibration appears to be gone. I did a track day this past Friday with this setup, and I spent a fair bit of time in third gear with no noticeable vibration.

It seems very coincidental that this would be noticed after lowering the car and then go away by replacing the wheels/tires, but the only other thing I found was that my right front wheel had a flat spot on the inner rim (looked like a hard pothole hit) - saw this when the wheels were off while doing the spring/sway install). I could almost buy that the geometry change introduced by lowering was putting more of the vehicle weight on the inside of the rims (where the flat spot is) but that doesn't explain why I only felt it in 3rd gear under hard acceleration.

Go figure...

 

The CV joint explanation was given to me as well, and if you search on NAM it has been discussed several times. About 2k miles after lowering my MINI 1.5" with PSS9s, the vibration that I was getting under acceleration is now all but gone. Apparently, new "grooves" have worn.

 

I experienced a horrible vibration under acceleration after an initial setup that was too low. I raised the ride height by a 11/16" and almost all of the vibration is gone. It certainly felt like CV joints. I have 53K miles on the car and I just installed new adjustable coilovers.

I'm not a CV joint scientist, but the article appears to have more than some truth to it.