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SolaraGuy.com • View topic - *UPDATED* Help - Steering wheel shakes between 60 - 80 mph
Page 3 of 3

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:38 pm
by RonnieBoi
i bought new tires for my car 3000 miles later my car started vibrating. went and got em balanced got the alingment n rotation done now the vibration was in the back of my car went to discount tires and they said my tires where bad i had only driven 3000 miles on them tires n they f*cked up on me so fast i got them to put new ones in and its fine now.

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 8:02 pm
by Chinky420
i quickly read thru the posts and figure i'd share my experience

i had a similar wobble problem (when braking at a speed between 60 and 75), and it turned out to be a warped rotor.

of course, my wobble/shake was only evident during braking, not during coasting/acceleration.

oh yeah, and the car would pull firmly to the right when i would brake (more evidence of rotor warping, i guess).

i'd say, start with the cheap/easy stuff first (wheel weights, balancing, hub centricity, brakes) before going on to the more specific/expensive stuff (cv joints and so forth).

GL

PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 2:21 pm
by elraido
Solarizona wrote:
xavier wrote:
Solarizona wrote:I had the same problem for almost a year. My car would shake accelerating/braking or just cruising on the highway. I had my wheels roadforce balanced probably 4 times in 6 months trying to figure it out. I had the steering and suspension checked, drive shafts - nothing was found. Finally a tech noticed my front driver's side rotor was visibly hotter than the passenger side. So, replaced the sticky caliper and rotor and it's been driving perfect ever since. My car had approx 105k miles at the time.


That makes sense. For reference, which rotor and caliper were sticking on your solara? How did you determine which is hotter? Just visually or did you use a thermoscan or whatever? And lastly, how much was the caliper and rotor?

Sorry for all the questions.. :)




It was the front driver's side caliper that was sticking. The rotor was replaced 'cause it was warped. A temperature gauge probably would have worked, but it got so bad it was plainly visible on the rotor. You could see the burn marks. I don't remember the exact price, but I think it was about $150 far a remanufactured caliper from Toyota.


We are having the same problem with the wifes car. I replaced rotors and pads all around last october, only to have nice vibration pop up in January or so. Didn't seem too bad, coughed it up to a out of balance tire. Then the grinding noise started. Took the front drivers side tire off and the pad was gone...all the way to the metal, and the rotor had huge scores in it. You could feel the rim being WARM....almost hot. Replaced the rotor and pad and it went away for about 3 weeks. Now the vibration is back and the rim is still warm. So, we figure it is a sticky caliper as well. Still managed 32 mpg with the car driving it 800 miles in one day to pick up my CSVT.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 8:30 pm
by yoboyandre
hmm.. i have the same problem! toward faster speeds as well..i had my pads n rotors changed in sept. ... and today when i took a close look at my front brakes/cailpers while i rotated my tires i saw the pad was touching rotor(not normal right!?) and i went ahead turned on the car and pressed on brake while i still looked and nothing happen... so my brakes in front arent working!? when i hit brakes hard from fast speed kinda makes weird noises, and lately getting a squaky noise on slow downs...

PostPosted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:46 am
by xavier
Bump for update

wow

PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 2:48 pm
by Mirza1212
I have the same damn problem and my tech said its cause of the balancing. JUst got it done and the same problem. Im on the highway everyday.=(

PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:55 pm
by Rm.Solara
I had the same problem in my car. I have rims on it and its lowerd to. i thought that it was my rims but it wasent the problem Than i changed the wheel bearing and it went away completly it usually gets bad after curb crashes high millege and bad tires that are not rotated. but if that dosent help than make sure your axles are not bent..
[img][img]http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x146/MaXvtec23/Photo0217.jpg[/img]
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[img][img]http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x146/MaXvtec23/Photo0215.jpg[/img][/img]

PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 4:09 pm
by indiglosolara
Did they check to see if the Axel was bent or not. That happened to one of my car where I had a bent axel.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 7:07 pm
by Keyboard Ninja
I always thought the sign of bad wheel bearings was a grinding noise? I own a 2004 SLE, and the rear left was grinding bad. After that was replaced the noise went away completely.

How can I find out if the wheel bearings are causing the vibrations?

PostPosted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:32 pm
by RON
Aside from any obvious causes..out of balance, etc...check your tire pressures. I was getting a steering wheel shimmy at speed on certain surfaces and my cold pressures were 29lbs up front :o . Went to 34lbs and the problem vanished.

PostPosted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:49 pm
by GreenSolara01
3 pages is allot to read , Have you had your alingment checked out?

Also, I would recomend having another shope check the ballence of your tires. On most ballencers you can chose how much you want to round off the weights. It helps save time so mechs don't spend all day chasing weights around the wheel. However it can have negative effects like what your having. It wouldn't hurt to have your car checked by some one else.

If only one wheel is bent, you might want to rock the spare to see is it solves the problem.

My car has to slightliy bent rims, roads suck here. but wih good tires I don't notice it at all.

good luck, hope this helps.

Re: *UPDATED* Help - Steering wheel shakes between 60 - 80 m

PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2011 5:18 am
by rex
At 55-80mph it shakes noticeably in the steering wheel but it will shake for ... It shakes when braking and accelerating between 60-80 mph.

Re: *UPDATED* Help - Steering wheel shakes between 60 - 80 m

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 12:32 pm
by 01Convertible
I don't drive my convertible year-round, but more of a Sunday driver kind of thing. I noticed that shortly after having my son-in-law replace the brake pads, I started noticing a front wheel shimmy. It really got worse when driving on hot summer days. Anyhow, after putting up with this for about 8 months, I changed the brake rotors with cheap ones from AutoZone (Duralast #31260) for about $30 each. What I noticed about the old rotors were that the outside surface was flat and smooth, but the inside surfaces were irregular with a rusty outer and inner band. This left only about 1/3 of the total surface area that looked like it was making good contact.

New rotors eliminated 90% of the wheel shimmy - tire rotation and rebalance (all 4 were a little off) took care of the other 10%. I'm now shimmy-free for less than $70 (I have lifetime rotation and balance on my tires).

Now I have to work on my valve cover leak (rear bank).

UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE!
It turned out that my wheel shimmy returned after driving a while. When I got home I used my "non-contact" infra-red thermometer (the kind with a laser pointer in them) to read the front rotor temperatures and the caliper temps. I discovered that my right-front rotor was around 340 degrees and the caliper was around 235 degrees! The left front caliper was around 105 degrees and the rotor was only about 160 degrees. This definitely indicated that a caliper was dragging and not releasing properly after brake applications.

I replaced both calipers and their hoses today. The hoses cost about $20 each from AutoZone and I paid about $53 each for the calipers. Everything is available for less from Rockauto.com, but then you have to ship the cores back as well as wait for the parts to arrive. I paid more for convenience. Anyhow, the bottom line is that the shimmy is definitely gone and both brake rotors are now running within 20 degrees of each other.

The temperature measuring trick may be of benefit to others that are battling this wheel shimmy thing. BTW, my caliper did not seem to be sticking when I changed the rotors and pads. The piston easily pushed back into the caliper body, so there was no reason for me to believe that it was sticking. I have also heard of defective hoses that would trap hydraulic pressure and cause the caliper to drag. I changed both, so I really can't say for sure whether it was the caliper or the hose (my money would be on the caliper though). Hope this helps some of you.