'Lo all,

My '96 GLE (slushbox owners are people too) has some seriously annoying front-end vibrations at higher speeds. Tires (Bridgestone Comp T/As) have about 40K miles on them and the vibrations started about 6-8K miles ago (tread is still remarkably good). The car was aligned when the tires were installed (and not since) and the shop that installed them has checked the balace on all 4 tires a few (read: 4) times since the install and swears they are all balanced fine. Tires do show some misalingment wear on the insides but I have noticed only very minor pulling.

On my own end, I have performed tire rotations in every imaginable configuration to see which tire(s) may be the culprit(s): front to back, 4 point, front to back again, - you get the idea. In all configurations the darned thing still vibrates @ 70+mph (which is just when the Max starts feeling like it wants to run This suggests that unless every tire has a broken belt or those yahoos really are lying (or can't work their machine), tire balance might not be the problem.

So, my question is this: can a mis-alignment that more typically causes pulling symptomology cause the vibration (wifey, much to my chagrin, drives the Max the most so the potential is high for any number of potholes, curbs, small animals, etc., to be tagged any number of times)? Or, might I have some other problem like the CV joints (but that symptom would probably appear at all speeds, right?), possible strut pbms (really reaching here), or ???

Any help is mucho appreciated.

Tof

 

Alignment issues don't cause vibrations per say. Something that is out of balance or out of round, worn out, lose ect cause vibrations.

The statement you made above regarding the 40K miles of wear on your tires is most likely the cause of your vibrations.

Replace your tires.

 

I had the same problem with front end vibration when I got my Falken 512s. I'd hit about 70mph (100km/hr) and the steering wheel would shake. As I pushed the car harder the vibrations eased a bit but was still there. I went back to the tire shop and had them rebalance the front tires. Since then I've not had a problem.

 

I've heard that some wheel balancers only spin up to 100 kph. Any idea if the machine that spun up your wheels went over that speed?

 

A wheel balancing machine does not need to spin your wheels at excissive speeds to detect an improper balance. It's there no matter what speed it rotates at.

There calibrated to detect down to 1/4 ounce of variation. Think about that, when you have a wheel/tire combo that weighs approx 25 lbs. Thats pretty damn precise!

 

i had the same exact problem, after an incident where i had to brake really hard, no ABS, locked em up, smoked em bad...since then they've been crappy at 70+, heavy vibration...just need new tires i suppose

 

Well, after calling around a bit and reading some of the posts here, I decided to take the car into another shop. I should have some info tomorrow on what the source of the problem is...

Tof

 

let us know if they figure it out