Steering wheel shake/vibration

roastbeef wrote

this isn't the same as the monoball bushings that dinan makes is it? i have a slight shimmy that seems to go away when the car is at operating temperature.

Performance tires are notorious for flatspotting.
If the car is bumpy, rough, or feels out of balance when cold or during the first few miles of a drive, the tires have developed flat spots from the weight of the car sitting on one spot of the tire for an extended period while parked. Basically, the tire develops a flat spot, instead if tensing round. As the tire rotates the flat spot creates a bump, vibration, and maybe sound.

When you drive a bit, the tire regains it's original shape and all problems are gone.
Only new tires will cure this.

Sound like what you are experiencing?

thakid22 wrote  

roastbeef wrote

this isn't the same as the monoball bushings that dinan makes is it? i have a slight shimmy that seems to go away when the car is at operating temperature.

Performance tires are notorious for flatspotting.
If the car is bumpy, rough, or feels out of balance when cold or during the first few miles of a drive, the tires have developed flat spots from the weight of the car sitting on one spot of the tire for an extended period while parked. Basically, the tire develops a flat spot, instead if tensing round. As the tire rotates the flat spot creates a bump, vibration, and maybe sound.

When you drive a bit, the tire regains it's original shape and all problems are gone.
Only new tires will cure this.

Sound like what you are experiencing?

Probably not because I store my track tires off of the car. The shimmy changes ever so slightly with my street tires.

Is our steering wheel suppose to have no shake at all or is some shake within tolerance? I use to have this problem running ZCP wheels, so I switched to my 18" track wheels and the shake is almost all gone. W/ the ZCP the shake was horrible.

See-Fu wrote

Is our steering wheel suppose to have no shake at all or is some shake within tolerance? I use to have this problem running ZCP wheels, so I switched to my 18" track wheels and the shake is almost all gone. W/ the ZCP the shake was horrible.

Mine doesn't shake. Is this just while braking or always? Have you tried to have it road force balanced?

both setes of wheels where road force balanced. so even on a bumpy highway there's suppose to be no vibration in the steering wheel?

See-Fu wrote

both setes of wheels where road force balanced. so even on a bumpy highway there's suppose to be no vibration in the steering wheel?

What I would call vibration would be different from feed back from a bumpy highway.

If both sets of wheels were road forced balanced then I would assume it is not balance or out of round wheels or tires. But I have had balance jobs that were called road force balance but really didn't do any more than a regular balance. Better shops will mount and remount the tires to match the wheels and tell you what the final balance is; costs more of course. Kind of above my level of knowledge level about here.

I suppose no rotating mass is without some vibration but my steering wheel doesn't show any vibration that I can see or feel.

Probably next would be looking for suspension problems or looseness. I would guess a bumpy road would cause a loose suspension part cause to feed back into the steering wheel.

Good information here: http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=695222

I guess have same problem as you. got this vibratons from 90kms/h and 110kms/h

The car was all stock when I buy it 8months ago. Then I've install -3cm KW Springs with 12mm spacers. I don't remember if I got this vibrations already when bought it. I made the alignement and balance, still have vibrations.

Now, I'm getting a new set of wheel Vossen VWS-3 with a dunlop tire and I've made again alignement and balance. Still got this vibrations.

I already got an appointement with my garage.

My brake shake is back even after cleaning the rotors with the hawk blue pads. I might have overheated the stoptech performance pads when i was bedding them. Now after a hard stop or two my steering wheel shakes bad and the shaking doesn't go away after I let the brake pedal go lol. The only thing I can come up with without taking the front brakes apart is the pads are toast and are releasing small chunks of material on the rotor after only one panic stop.

I'm going to try one of these


and order new stop tech pads

Bx Tpr wrote

My brake shake is back even after cleaning the rotors with the hawk blue pads. I might have overheated the stoptech performance pads when i was bedding them. Now after a hard stop or two my steering wheel shakes bad and the shaking doesn't go away after I let the brake pedal go lol. The only thing I can come up with without taking the front brakes apart is the pads are toast and are releasing small chunks of material on the rotor after only one panic stop.

I'm going to try one of these


and order new stop tech pads

If your shaking doesn't go away after releasing the brake, you have a different issue. I wonder if your caliper is getting stuck or a brake component isn't working as intended.

BzsBimmer wrote

If your shaking doesn't go away after releasing the brake, you have a different issue. I wonder if your caliper is getting stuck or a brake component isn't working as intended.

I'm going to check all the components when everything is apart. I'm also getting pad deposits just driving around town as well which is strange. When I had the Hawk blues on there to scrape the rotors these issues went away and never returned while driving with those pads.

Latest update:
The deposits are so deep into the rotor that I destroyed that honing attachment trying to get rid of them
I also noticed that after the rotors were cleaned and installed on the car again you can hear the pads make contact with the raised areas of the rotor where the deposits are. This makes sense. As the rotor turns and those raised areas with the deposits make contact with the pads they pick up new material and you'll constantly have brake judder when braking.

I'm going with some hawk blues again. This time I'm drive for a few weeks just to be sure these rotors are scraped right. I re-bed these things twice already and you can still see the deposits on the rotor. Crazy lol

I had my rotors stoptech drilled rotors cut and no shake anymore. Only $15-$20 per disc. Make sure you get a experience person to do it with a new blade. You'll lose about .1-.2 mm of life

Anyone actually every had this issue and found a fix. I have a similar issue on an all stock 15k 2011.75. New OEM rotors/pads all the way around. ZCP wheels road forced balanced as well. Th shake is inconsistent, but just enough to question it. I got the car with 12k and didn't notice it until immediately after purchase .

2-3 weeks in and I'm still driving around with the Hawk Blues. On occasion I'll get some vibration but I noticed its only after I ride the brakes to slow down. I would try ordering a set of aggressive pads for the oem brakes and drive around for a little.

I had this issue when on my Apex's or my Volk's on MPSS's and I don't recall having it prior to installing my H&R Race/Red springs. I've been wondering if it's my strut hats wearing excessively and I'll be throwing Clubsports/Camber Plates on next week with the hopes that this goes away.

Not sure if the E9X are prone to stuck Pistons in the calipers as the E36 was. Some of the symptoms I used to get were severe wheel shake at highway speeds, that usually started after a light application of the brakes. Bimmerworld made a stainless replacement piston. Shop installed one after a caliper rebuild only temporarily solved the problem.

I had vibration at speed without brakes applied. Turned out to be sticky caliper combined with pad deposits. New caliper, cleaned rotor, now smooth as butter.

I had H&R Race springs on stock EDC suspension installed and this issue started happening then or soon after for me. From what I can tell since putting on KW Clubsports, this issue no longer persists for me. This is only based on my initial impressions, but it feels SO much better.

Same issue for me. 08 e93 w/ 33k mi.

Bought it last May with only 18k miles. Basically a brand new 7 yr old car.

I currently experience a slight steering wheel vibration >70mph.

Stock 19's with PSS with ECS spacers had no vibration even with very little tread left.

Installed H&R springs in April with stockers & spacers. No vibration.

Installed 20x9F +20/20x10.5R +27 Verde wheels/ Hankook v12's evo2 255/30 & 285/30, hubcentric rings, no spacers just 3 weeks ago.

Wheels/tires were road force balanced however I had slight steering vibration so I went back.

Showed one of the front Hankook tires needed replaced as they said it "weighed" out of tolerance or something like that.

Still had vibes. Further research showed that the same wheel they replaced the a Hankook on had run out of .012. My question is that they say <.010 is essentially perfect so would the fact that I have one wheel at .012 cause this slight vibration?

They say no but I don't know what else to do at this point.

No vibes at all in any other scenarios, just >70mph.

I've had aftermarket wheels and lowering springs on my last four cars with 18", 19" & 20" setups with no issues.

I have the same steering wheel vibration on perfectly smooth hwy road at 60mph. If i look at my hand holding the wheel i can actually see the hand vibrating. And no it didn't do it when the car was new.

I have the cleanest record on this thread it looks like. Completely stock and only 18 k miles. OEM tires also.

Car is currently getting new tires and an alignement i hope it will fix it. I'm going to keep a close look on this threat hope Squartus will keep us updated.

I've had the steering wheel shake on and off starting a year after buying the car new three years ago. Damn near every owner I've talked to has the shake at 70 lol. Most of them including myself will tell you it's a tire/wheel balance issue. The other times it was a bent wheel(s) or alignment issue because of the crap roads in the northeast. I've been reading about how road force balancing is supposed to be done and after watching a few videos I can tell you that I've yet to see a tire shop do it the way its supposed to be done. This is in NYC of course lol. It's so bad here the shop that initially 'fixed the issue' told me the positions of the weights were completely off. Drove the car and it felt fine initially. A few hours later the shake was back. Took the car to a another recommended shop the next day and they said the same thing and balanced again. It's been 4 days and the vibration is ALMOST all gone. Almost lol. Still have a slight steering shake at 70 but its barely noticeable. Now I'm guessing it's either a slightly bent wheel or an alignment issue. Car gets aligned tomorrow so I'll report in.

WingZeroX5 wrote

check your tie rods
control arms
bushings
steering rack

If you're not experiencing pulsing while braking, then it's not warped or pad deposits

I've had this same issue on my car with 2 different sets of wheels. Will tie rods cause a shake like this? Mine are on their way out