I have a 2000 Maxima and my car's steering wheel is shacky. I have 18's on my car but im not sure where I need an alignment or what. My steering wheel feels sort of loose I don't know whether it means that I need an alignment or what? Please help

thanks
vilash

 

it may be u need to get ur tires balanced as well???

 

Balanced in what sense?

The way they are mounted and balance on the rims or?


thanks
vilash

 

Vibrations in the wheel are almost always due to unbalanced tires.

18 inch tires are not easy to balance; go to a GOOD shop to have this done and make it clear to them you want them balanced to under 3-4 grams. (better 2).
Since this is a lot of extra work for the tech to balance for someone who demands it be done tight tip him.

Fred...

 

Or go thru the yellowpages call the shops and ask if they have a hunter9700 blancing machine ( good and expensive)
Some shop may call it something else but teh other name also has "9700" in it.

Only very large tires shops will have it.

Also all Infiniti dealerships have them, and MB, Porsche, BMW probably as well.

Fred...

 

Yes

balancing involves the attachments of small weights on a rim in order to make up for production irregularities in tire and wheels.

Sometimes when a given wheel/tire combo cannot be easily balanced without excessive weights the tires are moved on the rim and checked.
Then moved on the rim again and chekced, this is repeated until they appera better balanced.
The above procedure (moving tire on rim)is known as indexing.

Sometimes you need to add indexing to balancing to get the tires right.
many shops dont have much experience with indexing since most consumers are pblivious to vibrations of this sort or think "its just the road"

If your steering wheel feels loose you might need new tierod ends as well (there are other possibilities too but given the young age of your car we can exclude some of them, short of a minor accident)

Fred...

 

The Hunter 9700 is the best machine to use to balance tires. It measures the road force of the tire and lets you know if a tire or wheel is bad. WE use it where I work and you would be surprized at how many bad tires we see. Find a dealer or good tire store that uses this machine and take it to them.