Intermittant Vibration at 45mph

[MikeyJay]

Hi,

I've got a frustrating issue and I need some advise. About 3 weeks ago I was on the highway at about 60mph and the car started to vibrate pretty bad. I thought a wheel was falling off.

I pulled over and checked everything and as it looked ok, carefully started off again. No vibration.

This past weekend, I changed the front brakes and put on the winter tires. Vibration came back, I pulled over and again nothing seemed wrong so I drove away and no issues. I just had a mechanic check the car and he couldn't find anything. An hour after I left the same thing happened.

I can't reproduce the issue but I can stop it by pulling over.

Anyone have an idea? CV? Engine mount? Clutch out of balance?

:iono:

[KimmoKekki]

CV joint i'd say ...
dried out -> seizured

[KenTK808]

whens the last time you got the tires balanced? wheel weights can fall off and tbh modern wheel balancing machines only balance up to 60-70 mph anyway. ive had balanced wheels vibrate at 90-110 mph

[SirDigby]

i'd lean towards wheel balance too. an engine mount would vibrate more at idle/lower rpm. the faster the engine turns, the more balanced it is. (to a point) I've never heard of a CV axle causing this, but I guess if the grease some how clumped up and got stuck in one place it could cause this vibration. you had a mechanic look at it, so he should have noticed any broken missing suspension components. maybe barring, but that would make noise all the time.
I would balance the tires and go to a better mechanic for further analyses. make sure he knows you took it to a mechanic already that found no issues. it will bump up his ego. :)

[red 5 door]

:cool:Can you put ft wheels on back and try again? Or use spare to check one corner at a time?

[KimmoKekki]

Ø. Driveshaft twist and CV joint seize are most common vibration source on European made Fords !
Those problems can do many kind of features on your car ... funny thing is you only notice those features afterwards

[MikeyJay]

Here's something that I failed to mention. The ABS light has been on and off for the past few weeks and the mechanic cleaned the sensor and cable and the light was off for a few days. It came back on last night and there has been no vibrations since. The vibrations were bad yesterday. I've put on 200 miles since last night and it's been perfect. These shouldn't be connected or can it be?

[KimmoKekki]

Good point to tell 8)
Sensor failure i quess .. can also be broken counter ring on CV joint ... or do these have magnet on wheel bearing ?

[MikeyJay]

https://www.amazon.ca/Timken-HA590170-Wheel-Bearing-Assembly/dp/B0097MCNAW

On the back it looks like a sealed unit with the hub. The car has 230000km on it so it's probably an idea to have it done.

[MikeyJay]

Further update, another 100 miles today with no shaking what so ever. Up to 65mph and it feels good again. ABS seems to be the issue. I never would have guessed this one at all.

[KimmoKekki]

Probably 1 sensor giving disinformation to ABS unit ... so one brake is braking little which causes vibration ?!
My previous AE111 did that same thing once but it had wiring harness issue studded winter tyres rip front left wheel arch wiring herness !

[MikeyJay]

Just an update, I replaced both wheel bearings with built in ABS sensors and so far the issue has not returned.

Thanks to everyone who helped on this.