s40 vibration

itarumaa

Hi,

I decided to change my car tyres from front to back since I hit a stone and damaged the wheel, I was able to fix the bent wheel with little bit of force and 1kg hammer but it was still a bit damaged, so it was vibrating the car at speeds 80+ even when balanced.

So I changed tyres and put the back tyres to the front. Now I get vibration again, but this time any speed, so I assume either tyre or wheel has been damaged, but how do I know wich one?

I need to change the front tyres anyway soon but how do I know if the problem is with the wheel or tyre and where could I get a new wheel if required?

Car is Volvo s40 2l petrol 98 and it has those basic 15" Volvo steel wheels, no alloys.

biko

You could try swapping the spare for whatever wheel you think is the culprit.
Quicker (but costlier) is to take it to a place where every tyre and wheel can be checked and balanced individually.

Again the old time or money dilemma

samsemtex

The guy changing the tyres will be able to check all the wheels for you. It will be very obvious to someone who does it for a living which wheels are causing the problems. You could get a wheel from a scrap yard for handy money. get it done ASAP. Your car will seem like a new one once you have that done.

If you are changing the front tyres anyway then he only has to check the two wheels on the back. Its hardly going to cost the world.

Armadillo444

Good Man.

Do not hit a wheel with a hammer, you fool. Leave the hitting to the experts, costs less in the long run.

Esel

Whatever about anything else, if you're getting two new tyres, put then on the back, not the front.

ShiresV2

Armadillo444 wrote: »

Good Man.

Do not hit a wheel with a hammer, you fool. Leave the hitting to the experts, costs less in the long run.

Do you have any advice about hitting wheels with hammers to straighten them other than "don't do that"? Honest question, not loaded etc.

Nissan doctor

Chances are your rear wheels, which I gather you now have on the front, are not balanced.

itarumaa

I just do not see this as balance issue, the car has lot of vibration and actually it is better when you drive around 70-80km/h than lets say 30-40km/h.

If the problem would be that wheels would not be balanced, then I think it should be problem around 80km/h not when driving slower.

mot_Socks

I thought that once balanced for front and rear, that swapping them about would play with the balancing no? Just wondering

Nissan doctor

itarumaa wrote: »

I just do not see this as balance issue, the car has lot of vibration and actually it is better when you drive around 70-80km/h than lets say 30-40km/h.

If the problem would be that wheels would not be balanced, then I think it should be problem around 80km/h not when driving slower.

A balancing issue can occur at any speed, minor balancing issues usually happen around the 80-120kmh but if the balancing is badly off on a wheel it can easily happen lower.

Perhaps one of your rear wheels was damaged previously?

Only way to be sure is bring it to get all 4 rebalanced, they will put the best 2 wheels to the front.

itarumaa

Ok, I spent a Saturday to change tyre after tyre, using a spare as help and eventually I got rid of the vibration.

The car is just so amazingly nervous with the vibration issue, same tyres (+wheels) but in different places in the car and no problems.

For instance front tyres are the same than before, but in different positions (left to right and vice versa) and before I got really bad vibration at speed of 80km/h, now nothing.

cjt156

Is it possible the tyres are directional and they had been on the wrong sides?

itarumaa

I don't see any markings in the tyres about the directional, but maybe this could be part of the truth.

Most important thing now is that car is fine to drive:)

BeardyGit

Those S40/V40's have an unhealthy habit for chewing up the balljoints that hold the rear of the bottom wishbone in place. I had to replace them on my old V40 every 50k or so.

If you gave the front wheels enough of a wallop to badly dent the steel rim, you could have damaged the undercarriage, at least in terms of things like the trackrod ends, balljoints etc.

Again from experience, you won't necessarily be able to tell anything is wrong just looking at it with a wheel off or whatever. It needs to be up on a ramp with someone hanging off the end of a pry bar to displace the balljoint, but it'll be noticeable when doing that for sure.

With that in mind, I'd take it to a mechanic and have them give it the once over. The shaking/vibration may be gone now, but it might also just have settled down, ready to come back with a vengeance when you're doing 120Kph on a busy motorway.....

I wouldn't be happy just swapping wheels around to be honest. They're either out of balance or they're not.... The don't come in and out of spec when you put them on different corners. Whether you can feel the vibes or not is another matter, but it doesn't mean there's not a problem....