vibration at highway speeds
 

my car starts to vibrate above 65MPH. in town it rides smooth. and it vibrates alot when im braking at highway speeds also. and the car pulls to the left, but the steering wheel doesnt shake. i can feel the vibration through the seats. do i need just an alignment or new control arms or tie rods? or both? thanks for your help.

Start with the simple: get your wheel balance checked. Shouldn't cost more than $40 total for rims on the car.

While there, have them check that your ball joints and tie-rod ends are solid. Just tell them, "I need you to check my balls." They'll know what you mean.

HAHA!! LMAO!!! thanks.. will do that...

Easiest thing to do first is a visual check of your tires to make sure tread isn't seperating from the tire. Make sure there are no bubbles or steel belts showing.

If the car pulls to the left then switch out your front tires for your rears. If it stills pulls then it may be front end suspension component

However, if the pull goes away you may have a bent rim/bad tire etc.

hmm, thanks for all the advice. i will go check them as soon as i get home.

If you bought your tires from Discount Tire, or somewhere similar, they usually offer free rotation/balancing.

Good call on getting his balls checked, too. My passenger side ball went bad a few months ago and made the car wobble at about 65.

Same here. This thread is kind of a coincidence for me. I just went for a re-balance yesterday, because of a shake @65+ mph. The balance is much improved now, but they warned me that my left ball was getting loose.

Which is weird, because I don't wear boxers. :chuckle:

But seriously... next up, get the car on the lift at my mechanics and re-assess. Then decide if I want to proactively replace the tie-rod end pieces as well, do an alignment, and be done with the whole thing. (FSB end-links were replaced 3 months ago.) But first things first, get the car to a trusted mechanic and see the problem first hand, if there even is one. (Um, after Maxus, that is. No racing for me now, not that I was going to anyway. I'm chicken schit.)

In other words, I'm right there with you, OP. Same symptoms. Maybe the same problem, aye?

maybe.. but do you get vibrations when breaking at highway speeds? everything seems normal in town, but when im cruising at 65+, i can feel the vibrations through the seats, but not the steering. im gonna get the wheel balance on monday and see if it helps. then i will do an alignment. and then move on to the balls and joints... lol

Mine vibrates between 60-70 but past that and below that its solid. Pretty sure its the tie rod ends

No. But that could be a brake issue, on top of what you have going on.

Step 1: check your tires and balance
Step 2: check your front end linkage

Warped rotors? :gotme:

Unless you track your car, and are routinely overheating your brakes in an abusive way, that whole "warped rotors" thing is kind of an urban myth. The concept of a rotor being "warped" fits well with the behavior, but the reality is that the pads are no longer bed-in properly with the rotor surface. Add to this a scratched, gouged or rusted rotor surface, and worn out pads, and getting that proper bed-in gets more and more difficult as the parts wear with age.

Tell me otherwise if you think I'm wrong. Um, I'm no stranger to being wrong.

Hey, ease up on our patend pending aye. Oh, and it's EH.:laugh:

A little off topic, but I had an alignment done today becauce I recently replaced my struts and just replaced my tires on Thurs. The toe was slightly out of spec. and so was the caster and camber. (very slightly). To my surprise the print out showed that the camber and caster were brought into spec? Unfortunatly, I didn't get to talk to the tech to ask him just how he was able to adjust the caster and camber. The rear toe was also slightly out but remained unchanged.

:sprint:yep!

:sprint:True that!

bent rim don't cause that...but bad tire belts can:sprint:
don't forget to check dem bearings


:sprint:

Wheel balance!

+1

Bent rim may or may not be common, but definitely was the cause on my Max lol.

A bent rim cause your car too pull?????? I wasn't speaking of the vibration part just the pulling! On your car too!!

I thought you meant the vibration I couldn't single out the pulling alone

As said before, do a visual inspection of tires/wheels. Then to check the front end, do the 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock check for play in the tie rods, then the 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock to play in the ball joint. Those checks should indicate if you have any worn components. If everything looks good and is tight, then:

Get your wheels balanced. May want to try hunter road force balancing. Its more expensive, but can definitively tell you quite a bit assuming the shop knows what they are doing.

Most likely you have pad transfer on the rotors. If your pads are low, replace the pads and either replace your rotors and have them turned. If you have plenty left on the pads, just have your rotors turned.

This is most likely alignment if all of your components are sounds.

On a side note, I have noticed that maxima's tend to be quite sensitive to vibrations and it can be quite difficult to eliminate them. I had issues on my '99 and also my '03. She is riding pretty smooth at the moment, but it took quite a while to get it there.

cool, thanks for all the valuable info.. just got my wheels balanced and the car feels good now. now i gotta find out about the brake vibration...

^^^ So, does your car still vibrate above 65mph and how much did it cost you?

You could try just bedding them in. If it smooths things out, great. Research what it means to bed in brakes.

If that didn't work out satisfactorily, then take it to a shop for a brake analysis. Understand that most shops will say you need new brakes simply because you're there and you are breathing.

tire pressure also make the car pull left or right

Where are you.....If you're in Houston...I'll find the problem(s)..........