Steering Wheel Wobbles...
 

Hi,

Maybe some of you guys can help me with this... it's driving me insane.

I recently started to feel a wobbling in the steering wheel (it's visible too... you can see the steering wheel wobble slightly and slowly when I'm doing about 25 or 30mph... at about 1 second per wobble).

I already had all four wheels aligned twice, balanced twice, and rotated twice at two different shops (first I did front to back, and then crossed them... as in front left to rear right). The wheels seem to be perfectly balanced, and the computers at both shops say the car is perfectly aligned. But the wobble is still there.

The faster I go, the faster it wobbles... when I go slow, I can see the steering wheel wobble real slow as well. Doing 65 or 70mph makes the car vibrate slightly.

When I turn, and let go of the steering wheel (taking my hands off and letting the steering wheel return to straight on its own), I can see the steering wheel sort of wobble back into place slightly (not a smooth return, but it sort of moves in stages... iykwim).

I can't recall hitting any potholes either... so I have no idea why it's doing that.

Any ideas of what might be causing this, or suggestions on what to do about it would be greatly appreciated. I really want to get rid of that wobbling.

Thanks,
LOS

Have you checked your power steering fluid lately? Although it's improbable, it's a good place to start checking. How are your bearings?

Well, I checked the PS fluid and it is ok. The car also had the 30,000 mile service just about 2 weeks ago.

I also made a mistake in my earlier post... it's about 3 wobbles per second when I do 30 mph.

I also do not hear any weird sounds comming from the front of the car when I drive... other than the wobble it's pretty smooth... but it's driving me crazy. Someone told me that if it was the bearings, I would either hear or feel some sort of scraping sound from the front... or when I turn, and I don't hear anything. What do you think?

Bent rim or loose wheel bearing is all I can think of. :dunno:
You don't have any broken cords inside one tire, do you? (big bulge in the sidewall)

Not at all... I already checked the tires, and rotated them twice (first I did X rotation, then simple front to back rotation... tires don't have direction of rotation). There were no bulges or any other kind of damage.

I suppose I will get the bearings checked.

Thanks,
LOS

Could be a bad tie-rod, warped rotors, bent wheel or a flat-stop in the tire. it sounds like you've gone to town checking out the wheels so i'd look into the condition of the rotors and tie-rods.

Thanks. Will do.

I have 35k on my P5 and this is exactly what I see on mine as well (started very recently starting to get worse... or was getting worse).

I took it to my trusted mechanic and had them give it a once over (as it had been aligned at 30k miles by them) just in case. They found the cause, it is the Dunlop tires (which had been balanced at 30k as well)... I doubted them, but four new tires later and the car is back to where it used to be, so it looks like they were right. Before we arrived at that the suspect was a warped rotor somewhere, but they checked them out and they are OK.

The more I know about the Dunlop tires the more I do not like them.

Had you rotated the tires? or was it just one of the tires that was causing the wobble?

the tires were rotated at each oil change (5k mile interval) and were only on the car for ~20k miles (I have winter tires for it as well). It basically started off one day and progressively got worse over the course of 5k miles. I am pretty sure at this point that it was just one of the tires in the front that was crappy... had I moved it to the back I might never have noticed it.

If you can rule out brakes, alignment and bent wheels it will be the tires. Even if the tires look good they can still cause a vibration, and 30k miles is about where you'd start to feel it too. I'm on my 3rd set of rubber at 35k and know just what you're feeling. I trashed the Dunlops at 15k because of it, and just got new Toyos after another 18k because of it. The old Toyos were worn out anyway. It seems the inside tread edge wears and sets up a harmonic. Even though its probaly not worth it, you can probably fix it by remounting all four tires inside out.

Or rotating them side to side if they have no direction of rotation. That wont make them be inside-out, but it could help if they spin the other way. :dunno: