Okay, so not getting an alignment just bit me in the @ss, but I'm not sure if that's my only problem. My car vibrates pretty hard at highway speeds, and from what I've read the main cause of that is unbalanced wheels. I put balanced wheels on the rear and it was okay for a while, but the vibrating eventually came back, so I suspect it's something other than unbalanced wheels (or it could be the fact that my car wasn't aligned which caused uneven tire wear which eventually led to unbalanced wheels, doh). It got so bad that I now need to buy a pair of tires. If alignment and unbalanced wheels aren't the problem, what else could cause the vibrations? I want to get my car alignment done to see if that helps reduce the vibrating, but first I need to take care of another problem, my brakes.

When I brake, the steering wheel vibrates like crazy, which leads me to believe my rotors are warped. So I guess I'm in the market for new rotors and pads as well. I'm thinking of purchasing the zinc plated RTP blank rotors and PBR metal master pads. My question is should I be replacing both the front and rears? Money is an issue right now, but if I should replace the rears also I might as well order it now and save on shipping.

I'm pretty sure that I need to do the brakes before I get my alignment done, but what are the rules as far as what NOT to do after getting an alignment? Can I get my alignment done and then have 2 tires mounted and balanced after? I guess basically what I'm asking is what affects the alignment. If I can hold off on buying a pair of tires, that would be great, but if that will affect the alignment then I guess tire shopping it is.

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

I too will be getting an alignment and swapping my rotors. As for my rotors I found that the tire tech that installed my last set of tires torqued the lug nuts too tight. That is a big no no for so called "hat rotors" like we have on the 6th gen Max. As for an alignment, thats just plum overdue. Feels like Torque steer at 2000 RPMs (just kidding)