steering wheel slight vibration high speed???

[marcus]

got new rims and tires it was balanced but it seems like i have a slight vibration on speed over 100km/hr nothing to serious but i couldve sworn i dont have that on my stock 185/60/15 tires setup..could it be due to i went to 205/50/16 wider track. anyone thanks!!!!!!!!!

still getting the shimmy on 60-65mph ..slight vibration on the steering wheel..could it be due to me going to 16x7 and wider tires as well..vs stock.. can our yaris get a 4 wheel allignment..i know some cannot be done on the rear..

[supmet]

My guess is alignment, and that it was off before you put new rims/tires, you just didn't notice with the skinnier tire. Check the torque on all your lugs just in case though.

[Bob Dog]

alignment is a good bet, bigger wheels will make any short coming in alignment more pronounced. you also might have lost a wheel weight if it was not put on well enough. new alloy wheels can sometimes loosen up so as supmet said. its a good idea to check your lug nuts.

[marcus]

kewl i i may be time for an alignment anyways..

[RedRide]

It cold also be a tire that is out of round.
That happend to me once.

[silver_echo]

any idea what machine they balanced it with? there is a possibility that the wheel/tire combination may not be perfectly static/dynamic balanced...


basically what i am asking is if the balancing machine that they used has a road force measurement... if they have one there, and did not use it to start with, ask them to check it with that, i have seen it happen that after using a proper road force balance, that it solved issues that only appeared with adding the new tires

[silver_echo]

It cold also be a tire that is out of round.
That happend to me once.

+1 agreement, this fits with my statement as well

[marcus]

out of round...it is a new tire.. sumo firenza..but i guess they wont tell me if its out of round since i bought the tires from them..hmmm

[silver_echo]

out of round...it is a new tire.. sumo firenza..but i guess they wont tell me if its out of round since i bought the tires from them..hmmm

out of round can happen very easily... but take the tires back to them, tell them your issue, and ask for a balance recheck...

[MUSKOKA800]

out of round...it is a new tire.. sumo firenza..but i guess they wont tell me if its out of round since i bought the tires from them..hmmm

I've bought a Bridgestone which was out of round (warranty replaced) so wouldnt be surprised if a "sumo firenza" wasn't bad from day one. I'd have the balancing double checked first though.

[marcus]

i guess its ok now..just had it pushed to 130km and i didnt notice the vibration..could it be that the rear is wider and for some reason it looked angled than b4 compare to stock

[MUSKOKA800]

a bad balance job will always be most noticable a certain speed ranges, 100-110 kph being one of those ranges were the slightest imbalance will come to light. I picked one up when I replaced my stock plastic valve caps with slightly heavier metal ones.

[Loren]

What Muskoka said.

Alignment problems don't cause vibration until they've been let go long enough to cause a wear problem. Bad alignment with new tires does not equate to vibration.

Bad tire or improper balancing. 60-65 mph is when you'll usually feel it the most, especially on a lightweight car. (the Miata community actually calls it the "65 mph shimmy", it's that common) Usually if you go faster or slower than that, you won't feel it.

[detroiter]

I might add in maybe that if they were brand new tires, did they get enough miles on them to pass the break in period? I'd imagine that might be a contributor.

[KCALB SIRAY]

Are your new wheels hub-centric?

[marcus]

here is the rim sdrag dr16 on 205/50/16 sumo firenza..

didnt know about the break in on tires..

[marcus]

Did you use hubcentric rings to bring the wheel mounting surface to match the OEM toyota 54.1 bore?

Cheers

yas it came with the rims and also measured it myself 54.1 it is..

[KCALB SIRAY]

Are your new wheels hub-centric?

Did you use hubcentric rings to bring the wheel mounting surface to match the OEM toyota 54.1 bore?

Cheers

Marcus!! ^

[marcus]

yah??

[marcus]

still getting the shimmy on 60-65mph ..slight vibration on the steering wheel..could it be due to me going to 16x7 and wider tires as well..vs stock.. can our yaris get a 4 wheel allignment..i know some cannot be done on the rear..

[Loren]

What exactly have you done so far to fix the problem?

(hint: start by having the tires rebalanced)

[marcus]

pumped the tire on an even psi for all four..but before that it was rebalanced all four.. but i was told to jsut drive it for a while "break in" so im still waiting to hit atleast 500 kms.. steering vibration is not that bad but id rather not have it..the rear end does looked like its more slanted than stock. angled in i guess due to wider tires..

[Loren]

Your alignment has nothing to do with the vibration. (I said that once already, but it bears repeating)

Your new tires have affected your alignment in no way.

Tire vibration issues are not cured by "breaking in" the tires.

If the shop that mounted your tires isn't capable of properly balancing your tires (not that uncommon, really), find one that is.

Sports car folks swear by the Hunter GSP9700, you might find a shop that has one. Of course, even the best equipment (this goes for wheel balancing as well as alignment) is only as good as the tech that's using it.

The GSP9700 is a "road force" balancer. It doesn't just "spin up" the wheel, it has a roller that simulates the force of the road and does a much better job of balancing the tire.

In my experience, a good tech that gives a shit about what he's doing and approaches the job with a goal of "perfect balance using the least possible weights" instead of "just slap weights on where the machine says to and if the blinking light says it's okay, even if it's .25 oz off, send it out the door" can get the job done with even low-tech equipment. Sometimes breaking the bead on the tire and rotating it 90 degrees to adjust for imperfections in the wheel and tire can help these problems... most techs aren't willing to do it, even when it's the right thing to do.

[marcus]

ok i got local tire place that had the GSP9700 machine.. $80.00 cnd to balance all four though..yikes i dont mindpaying that assuming that they can fix the issue..

[marcus]

UPDATE!! rebalance by gsp9700.. got better but still that slight vibration on the steering wheel unless ive always had it...the previous balance weight did come off again so hope this stays and the minimal vibration aint too bad to deal with wel shall see..

[aucorium]

hey buddy , i had a similar problem a while back.

the solution was that one of the spicot rings that go inside the rim when going on the hub was missing , and the other one was the incorrect one making that the wheel wasnt on properly. check the spicot rings , the usually little round plastic rings , make sure they work with that specific wheel , and that they fit in flush , if not , then that is your prob.

[Loren]

A cheap plastic centering ring that's not a proper fit or wasn't installed properly and interfered with fitment can be a problem. Otherwise, with lug-centric wheels (acorn style lug nuts) centering rings are completely unnecessary and it doesn't matter if they are there or not. I've run many different aftermarket wheels on many different cars without them and never had a problem with balance or anything else on the street or the track.

The centering rings make it easier to put the wheel on the car and serve no other engineering purpose. The lug nuts actually center the wheel. I've seen an engineer's analysis of this. There are two arguments for hub centering rings on lug-centric wheels: centering and load-bearing.

1. Modern wheels are machined with the lug holes cut to the same centering tolerances as the center bore, this is not an issue.

2. The centerbore is not relevant to supporting the weight of the car. The car is supported by the friction between the wheel and the hub that results from the clamping force of the lug nut torque. Interesting and surprisingly understandable "back of the envelope" calculations attached. (Derived by Lance Schall, as posted to Miata.net (http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=127227) a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.)

[marcus]

wow its like high school all over again..

[Loren]

Well, yeah... except this is IMPORTANT stuff!

[soloecho2]

Thanks Loren. After listening to way too many opinions I was starting to doubt myself on the whole Hubcentric thing. Thanks for the sanity check.

[YarisSedan]

Your missing hub centric rings. So the wheel is not centered on the hub. Its equivelent to having a bent rim. Its going to get worse and eventually your wheel will fall off. I used to work at a tire shop we would get them all the time. We would do a tire rotion and then customer would complain of horrible vibration. Because the wheel would be slightly off center. We would get 2 people one person hold the wheel as centered as possible on the hub while someone else quickly zips them down. Its never going to be perefect centered without the ring but it would be better.

[marcus]

all rings are intact and proper sizes..

[henrystyle]

I know this thread is old but I am having the same exact problem. Going to have all 4 tires high speed balanced in the morning.. We shall see if that solves the problem. I have stock rims with new stock size tires. Hopefully the problem goes away..