Recently noticed that my normally very smooth driving 2011 has been shaking, shuddering, and vibrating. Comes and goes. From about 40mph on up. I can't recall hitting any major pot holes, but something's changed. Does it with my OEM tires/wheels (41,000 miles on the car), and with my winter set of tires/wheel. Have had them checked for balance, all good. All lug nuts torqued correctly, brakes are fine with no warped rotors.


BTW, Hunter Road Force balancing means noting if the tech isn't using it right, and if you don't get a print out of the before and after condition. Hunter has terrible customer service, and most places that have their machine wont give you a print out because they know they don't do the full process, and/or do it correctly.


Seems to shudder badly when cold and getting up to highway speeds. So I guess I'm looking at a possible bent axle, CV joints, tie rods, or wheel bearings. Someone suggested a broken motor mount possibly.


Can we get a discussion going? Possibly we can help each other out if others are having this issue.

 

I posted on this, is slight but annoying I still think it might be my axle and or 'other wheel' bearing. my problem got better when i changed one side (wheel bearing). If you do the bearings be sure to do both sides -- its just knowing its not the other one that helps you further diag the issue.

Just my two cents.

 

I've had bad wheel bearings in 2 different maximas, one being a 2004, that one you could hear loud as day depending on speed, the faster you go=the louder it got.

Then I had the same problem with my 2010 maxima, but I didn't get the humming/grinding sound like the other maxima but the car shook so violently on the highway I thought maybe it was wheels being out of balance or another suspension problem.

Sure enough when I brought it to the deslership and they checked it out, it was the wheel bearing. Lucky for me with that car it was still under powertrain warranty and the cost was covered.

 

When mine went I was out by 1000 -- seems to happen on all my cars

Right after the warranty kicks out something that would have been covered gets replaced on my dime.

Its a science...

 

i think I legit had 2 weeks left on the powetrain warranty. We ate steak that night

 

Thanks for the input Mike and Tommy. Going to have both front wheel bearings replaced. It will cost, but not too bad at about $500 total. My 2011 is out of warrantee.

 

If you are handy its not that hard to do, you could use an altima guide as a reference, hardest part is seperating the axle from the hub to get the bearing out. the rust makes it a pain if you get the roads salted. Also make note of the notches in the hub for proper placement, I think those have to do with the abs system.

But still all this is 10x better than the press to get to the bearing, and smash back in etc... older style bearings.

Let us know how you make out!