Steering Wheel Vibration

jamieh

Hi all,

I have a 05 3 series M sport coupé.

Recently, the steering wheel has started to vibrate intermittently, generally when I hit around 50mph.

I got the car tracked and balanced but that doesn't seem to have fixed it, although the tyre place did say that the front right tyre was taking a good bit of weight.

Generally, I can hear the tyre noise getting louder inside the car and then the steering wheel shakes....sometimes quite hard.

Any ideas what it could be? ....uneven tyre wear or could it be a suspension problem?

I also have 2 run flats on the rear - the sensor hasn't come on, but is there a chance that a run flat could be punctured?

Victor_M

jamieh wrote: »

Hi all,

I have a 05 3 series M sport coupé.

Recently, the steering wheel has started to vibrate intermittently, generally when I hit around 50mph.

I got the car tracked and balanced but that doesn't seem to have fixed it, although the tyre place did say that the front right tyre was taking a good bit of weight.

Generally, I can hear the tyre noise getting louder inside the car and then the steering wheel shakes....sometimes quite hard.

Any ideas what it could be? ....uneven tyre wear or could it be a suspension problem?

I also have 2 run flats on the rear - the sensor hasn't come on, but is there a chance that a run flat could be punctured?

Could be suspension, I snapped a spring on my M3, brought it to Dave McCann as I had the same symptoms as you, wheels were aligned and balanced, same thing re-appeared a few days later, brought it back they realigned again, still didn't notice the broken spring I had to bring it to my mechanic who gave it a thorough once over and spotted the rear driver spring had snapped near the top so the car wasn't even visibly sagging, it just didn't feel right as speed and I went through a rear tire in 2-3 months due to the misalignment!

Also trailing arms and bushings on the 3 series seem to be made from butter so get them checked too.

corktina

two thoughts.

If one wheel needed a lot of weights to balance it, it could be buckled.Swap it on to the back to see if it helps (or replace with spare if possible), Might not be practical with run flats perhaps.

In my experiance, intermitant wheel wobble can be caused by a caliper sticking. Easy thing to check.

th3dan

the wheel possibly buckled or bearing is gone .easy check just jack up your car and spin the wheel around and watch for uneven rotation and then put your hand 9 to 3 on the tyre and shake the wheel they shouldnt be any play. if theres noise it more then likey bearings. if the caliper is sticking the wheel will have resistance when trying to spin it.

jamieh

Thanks for the advice lads.

Forgot to say - a car made contact with my front right wheel recently and there were a quite a few marks on the alloy.

Does the wheel look as if it could be buckled?



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Keith in cork

That was a pretty big nugget of info to leave out :D


You've bent something by the sounds of it. Usually when we get them in (tyre center) with abusive shakes first off is a balance. Balance of rears also in RWD cars. On FWD cars a balance of front wheels is usually all thats needed with the rear wheels being on a fixed axel i.e doing nothing but turning. A Rwd car they are the driving wheels. On FWD cars if the owner complains of getting the vibrations more in the pedals, you do the rears.


After that its a check of the bushings. Then you look at bent arms etc.

Given your impact, i'd imagine you've bent an arm.

The wheel balancer would have showed up an error had your wheel been buckled (unless of course its a cheap machine)

(and a picture won't allow us to tell if its buckled).....