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Vibration at 65-70mph
I drive a 2003 Jetta Wagon. This car normally has nice handling in
the 75-80mph range. This week, I took my car down a logging road. As I got further down the road, I was committed to maintaining my speed of 30-35mph due to soft sand. While this road was pretty smooth, it did bottom out a number of times as the center of the road peaked, forcing me to change my track. Other than plowing through a bit of sand, no problems. When I finally escaped the logging road, my drive home was rather uneventful, but I noticed a slight vibration at 65-70mph. Later that day, on another trip, the vibration felt more dramatic. The tires on the car were in pretty bad shape, good tread, but showing signs of age and bad alignment. That said, no problems driving at 80-85mph for a 10 hour stretch. So now, I have a pretty bad vibration at 65-70mph that feels like it is coming from the front end. The vibration is not limited to the steering wheel, it feels like the whole car is vibrating. I feel like my problem is related to my trip down the logging road. I feel I have damaged tires or knocked something out of alignment despite the fact that I experienced no high speed impacts or jolting blows. Here's what I have done so far: 1) Thinking I have some accumulated mud and sand, I pressure washed the undercarriage as best I could. 2) I went to mechanic #1. Based on my description and his inspection for damage, he felt it was a wheel balance problem. Suggesting that one or more front tires might have shed a weight. We aligned the front tires. Same problem, no improvement. 3) I went to mechanic #2. Mechanic #2 pulled front wheels and together we looked for any obvious signs of damage. None found, the mechanic felt that this was a tire balance problem and mechanic #1 had improperly balanced the tires. Mechanic #2, put the front tires on the balancer and found they were perfectly balanced. Problem continues. 4) Now, I put my own logic to work. I understood that a badly damaged tire could be balanced without revealing a problem. So, I purchased two new Bridgestone tires for the front, with tire balancing, from mechanic #3. I also had the mechanic look for any signs of damage that could lead to a high-speed vibration. He didn't find any problems with mechanicals, but showed concern about the rear tires. He said the rear tires looked good, but were cupped and out-of-round. He doubted that bad rear tires could have caused that much vibration on a front-wheel drive car. This condition has all the signs of out-of-balance front wheels/ tires. What else could provide those symptoms. Right now, my next plan is to replace rear tires, have them balanced, and have the car aligned. I didn't mention earlier, but the car is tracking straight with no problems until I start getting the vibration at 65-70mph. It doesn't feel like an alignment problem, but I am running out of ideas. Thinking about drive train, suspension, and wheels - nothing I can think of mimics the out-of-balance feel. Any ideas? |
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Vibration at 65-70mph
Damron wrote:
> I didn't mention earlier, but the car is tracking straight with no > problems until I start getting the vibration at 65-70mph. It doesn't > feel like an alignment problem, but I am running out of ideas. > > Thinking about drive train, suspension, and wheels - nothing I can > think of mimics the out-of-balance feel. > > Any ideas? It sounds to me like the wheels. You may have slightly warped a wheel when the car bottomed out. The only easy way to check that is to get ahold of two front wheels and swap yours out to see if the problem goes away. I know you said they looked at the wheels, but it only takes a very slight dent/bend/warp to cause problems at 65-70 mph. I've actually a very similar problem on an Audi and it turned out to be one of the brakes. That was a very unusual circumstance... In Colorado, they use this ridiculous magnesium chromite to salt the roads because they're worried about salt harming the environment somehow. I can't really see how magnesium chromite could be any better than salt, because it eats right through metal if you let it sit long enough. Anyway, some of this crap got into one of my brakes and just stayed there for about a year, and it finally caused the caliper to fail to release completely. So the caliper was very slightly rubbing up against the disk as I drove, but it wasn't noticeable until I was going about 55-65 mph. I could imagine sand in a brake caliper causing a similar issue, but I still think it's more likely a slightly deformed wheel. |
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