Do 02 SE stock wheels come with or need hub-centric rings? My car vibrates at 55 to 85 mph especially when gas is lightly given. I called Discount Tire Direct, and the person there said stock wheels don't even need centric rings. Is that true? If so, what else can cause my car to vibrate like that? I have my wheels checked, they are all straight and true. And input is very welcome.

 

The car or the steering wheel?

 

Yeah, my wheel moves a little bit when i am goin down the highway at highway speeds. Im not sure if the wheels are off a touch or if its just the wheel. Im fairly sure the wheels are straight and balanced.

 

I have the same problem between 65 and 75... taking it to balance the wheels and re check the alignment.

 

yeah im going to do the same since my buddy works at a tires and wheels joint.

 

I've had my tires balanced several times but I still cannot get rid of the vibration in the steering wheel from about 70-75 mph. And the weird thing is, sometimes the vibration is not there at all! Could this be an alignment issue?

 

No hubcentric rings needed for stock wheels. What kind of tires, how many miles? I'm guessing cheapo tires...

 

Jupps, I recently had the same problem. it seemed that my balance weight on one of the front tires had fallen off.

 

i had the same problem but it was just that i needed my wheels rotated. maybe the same issue with you?

 

if one of your front wheels were out of balance and you rotated them, you would notice much less vibration. That my be why your rotation fixed the problem. Tire vibration is not a good reason to rotate. Rotating tires is only done to wear the tires eavenly throughout their life span.

 

AcerX: the vibration is mostly from the car, slightly on the steering wheel

Lontar1: they were balanced, it helped a little, but not completely

CCS2k1Max: they are Michelin Pilot Sports A/S with some 30K miles on them

nyautostyle: I tried rotating them, no dice, still vibrates

I will try to have an alignment done ASAP and post results. Although my local tire shop told me alignment has very little to do with any vibration, I will still give it a try...

 

do an alignment.. if that doesn't get rid of the problem.. then check all components of the steering....

 

So much for the cheap tires theory... Are the tires wearing evenly? Did it just start vibrating all of a sudden, or was it gradual? How many miles total on the car?

 

I have the exact same problem. I've had my tires checked for balance and alignment twice, and it won't go away. It really frustrates me that pretty much everything else about the car seems right, and yet I don't have a smooth ride.

 

go to a shop who has the road force balancing machine/ runs about $70 for 4 tires to be bone. they should balance to 0.00

 

Balance for sure! find a shop that will balance them on the car, this is more accurate and will surely fix you're problem. Also if this has been a problem since you bought you're tires then maby a rookie tie installer accidently dropped a weight inside you're wheel and tire. This will make the balance fluctuate no matter how many times you get the balance checked. Think of a clothes washing machine when it's out of balance, shakes like crazy, same idea with tires. only other options would be a bent hub or axle but unlikely because you usually feel that at lower speeds

 

Have the shop (or do it yourself if you know how) see if the tie rods are loose at all.

 

I had the vibrating problem at speeds from 45 up. It started doing it a few days after I brought it home from the lot, come to find out, one of the tires only had about 22 pounds of pressure in it. After checking the rest, and adding more air to each one, the car drove like a cadillac again, well, thats what it drove like after comparing it to the shakey car. :-) just saying be sure you check your tire pressures and good luck.

 

I experience a slight shudder/vibration (whole car not the steering wheel) at 60-80 mph and the car only has 30k miles on it. If you do a search in other forums you will see this is a common problem. Tried everything the guys suggested here and it still shudders (also checked CV joints and they are in great shape) . I started to think it was torque converter shudder but it looks like it is the driver side axle bearing (the one inside the transmission). When I grab on to the end of the axle that connects to the tranny I can wiggle it a little. The passenger side doesn't do this at all and it extends further out from the tranny then the driver side axle so you would think the bearing would have more of a tendency to fail. I can live with the shudder now (barely can feel it but I do notice it on very smooth roads) but I am thinking of taking it to the dealer someday to get repaired under the factory powertrain warranty (100 to 1 says they'll find some way to make me pay for it!). Funny thing is, I remember my fiero had a similiar problem and rather than replacing the bearings (it involves splitting the tranny) I installed axle stablizers. (see bottom right picture in link below for an image)

http://www.secureleadercom.com/fssto...Bit=3&dept=162

They are like a second set of bearing that you hammer into the tranny just like you would the bearing seal. Problem is this is just a temporary fix. Not to mention they are a bear to take out and they mess up the tranny seal surface when they do come out.

 

EVen Michelin Pilots can go bad or be BORN bad.
Never rule-out a bad tire, especially with 30k miles.
Are they worn evenly? Bubbles, blisters, sidewalls ok??

Defintely get 'em on a Hunter Roadforce before you chunk the tire....

Bent rim could be the case as well, if you have exhausted all the other mentioned maladies.

Always go from least expensive to most when fixing problems!

gr

 

Hey dude if you can move the axle on the tranny side that is where ur vibration is--the axle is not suppose to move in the tranny--need to take the tranny out and get the bearings replaced

 

got to discount tires if there's one near you they'll check the road force on them, and also check if your tires are feathering usually directional tires begin to feather and feel choppy on the edges 30k on tires do begin to get vibes on them, you got lucky to have 30k on michelins on 17's?

 

go to discount tires*

 

i thought mine was balancing but then discount tires told me i had a sligth bent in the rim.

 

If you feel the shaking thru the steering wheel it's either tire imbalances or excessive road force from the tire/wheel assembly due to one or more of the following conditions:
- Tires mounted or wore out-of round
- bent wheel
- tire went bad, as in slipped or torn belt, etc

A slight vibration you can feel mostly in the seat (again, between 50 and 65 MPH) is exactly the same condition but on the rear tires

Find a shop that has a Hunter 9700 Road Force analyzer and tell the technician you want the road force on the front wheels to be less than 10 lbs. Trust me, u wanna be very specific on that because the machine will say 'pass' at 22 lbs of 'road force' and at that level of road force, our Maxes (specially those with 17" or larger wheels) WILL SHIMMY. You may have to slip the tech a fiver but.....you want the front wheels at LESS THAN 10 LBS OF ROAD FORCE so have him work as long as he has to (moving the tire around on the rim) until he gets to <10 lbs

If you cannot get your tires to less than 10 lbs of road force, the shimmy will continue. I needed three tries to get my Turanzas to <10 lbs and that cured the ocassional, slight shimmy. One of my fronts is now at 4 lbs of road force, the other is at 7, since I got there, car has been buttery-smooth....

 

It turned out that one of my front bearings was bad... so many things can go wrong to cause annoying little issues. With so many heard cases of failure, our Max's do seem to have some weak bearings. Luckily, I am still under powertrain warranty to have it covered by the dealer. So for other ORGer's that also experience the same high speed shimmy; if nothing helps, try having the bearings checked. The bearings don't necessary have to make any noise or the infamous whoo-shoo whoo-shoo sound to fail. Once replaced, the car is all nice and smooth again, awesome. I will still try to have an alignment done to see if it further improves anything.

Max0nDubs: They are Pilots on stock 17's. They last some good miles mainly because I am usually easy on them. I also have 2 newer ones with about 20K miles due to nails. Pilots loves nails, they are pilots' favorite food.

Galo: Good stuff! I will go to my local shop with Hunter, and have them do what you said. Never too much smoothness. Thanx for the information.

Thank you all so much for the quick and useful tips and helps.

 

Good to know! I kinda suspected bearings were my issue, too. I hear a metal-on-metal scraping noise from *I think* my driver's side front wheel, so I was going to have the bearing checked out. And since my problem could be described the same as yours, I'm definitely going to have Nissan take a look at the bearings now. (I'm at 53k, so I've still got 7k miles on the powertrain warranty.)

-Brian

 

I get also a bad vibration noise going about 40+ , but only in snow. Does anyone know what this problem can mean?

 

Slow down?

 

Well the road will be clear... But there would be snow in my tires or around my tires. The vibration is really bad and scares the people in my car.. i have to go in the right lane and go slower than most traffic.

 

wow, i cant believe this many people have a vibration, i have had none, when i had my stock tires, and now have potenzas. it is one reason i love the car so much, nearly 50k miles on the car

 

My car does the same thing i hate it

 

This one is easy: you have some snow packed into the wheels....on the inside of the rims behind the spokes......that causes a severe imbalance situation.

If you feel this after a bad snowstorm, just stop the car and clear the inside of the wheels....

 

soooo true.................... snow sucks!

 

Thanks alot... Gotta wait a whole year to try it out