Vibration at Highway Speeds

[Frosty]

Had my tires balanced and rotated to see if it would fix a vibration but no luck. The car's fine until I go above 110 kmh (70 mph), and gets increasingly worse as I increase speed. Also, when I ease off the throttle for a second at highway speeds it's a bit worse. The vibration seems to be coming from the floor and in the steering wheel. Also had my brakes serviced recently, but the vibration was there before that, so I don't think it has anything to do with the brakes. Maybe the drive shaft or a bent axle?

Everything is OEM, except for the tires that are almost new Toyo's, but the vibration was there with the OEM Michelin tires.

Any suggestions?

[cklinh]

aftermarket wheels?

[Frosty]

Original Solara wheels, OEM.

Thanks for asking.
I'll edit my orignal post for other members.

[Strider327]

Maybe an alginment problem or the brake rotors shaking.

[Frosty]

If the alignment was off, wouldn't the vehicle drift to the side?

[Strider327]

It really all depends. The alignment doesn't have to be really messed for your steering to be shaking like that. Sometimes it doesn't even pull right away.

[solorasweetie]

how old are your tires?? & how much thread is left? because that was happening to me when i finally decided that i just needed new tires.... the 5 inch nail in the side of one of my walls helped in my decision. but once the new tires were balanced and mounted, the vibration went away immediatly.

*edit*
oh. i forgot to mention... i also did the same with the balance and rotation. to think of it, i think it actually got worse.

[Yanks0114]

Any chance that you could have bent or damanged on of the wheels?

[PhreakdOut]

How many miles on your 'Lara? Have you checked the tie rods?

Personally, I'm leaning to a bent wheel. Try swapping front to back on the wheels and see if the problem continues.

Check the rack to see nothing is loose. CV joints in good shape? Any noise or damage to the boots?

Good luck.

[NeFaRiOuS_SLE]

Yeah it might be a bent wheel... I tried to make a corner fast on my SenCrap in the mountains and hit a curb because there was a friggin' puddle, plus I didn't pump the brakes (no ABS). The mechanic that replaced the lower control arm noticed it and placed that wheel in the back, which that already worsened the ride quality. Then one day, it slipped my mind, I got a tire rotation and then BAM! The steering wheel vibrated like crazy above 30mph (about 48 km/h).

In your case it might not be too severe a bend that might cause it to only be noticable in highway speeds, because for me I was doing about 40 then reduced to about 15 before I hit the curb (or 64 down to 25 km/h).

[Frosty]

Wheels and tires are fine. The car has 120,000 km (75,000 miles) on it and the tires (Toyo Proxes TPT) have about 22,000 km (13,650 miles). Balancing and rotating the tires doesn't seem to help.

I think the vibration could be caused by:

1. CV joints
2. wheel bearings
3. drive axle assembly
4. bad connection between the transaxle and the drive axles

My feeling is #4 because the vibration increases slightly when I ease off the throttle, and decreases slightly when I accelerate. When I maintain a certain speed, say 120 kmh (75 mph), the vibration is consistent.

I'm going to send an email to the dealer because the mechanic test drove it last Thursday and said it was fine. He was only gone for 5 minutes and there's no way he could have taken it on the highway when the dealer is 10 minutes from the nearest on ramp.

It's bugging the hell out of me, so I want to get it diagnosed and fixed as soon as possible. I bought the car because it's such a smooth machine, this vibration is ruining the Solara experience that I used to love.

[TadS]

Sounds like a driveline problem to me. Has it ever been wrecked or curbed?

[DrakkkarDarkbladE]

Toyota just made a recal of steering columns for about 2 million cars, maibe the solara is one of them, and thats the problem you are running into.

saw this in the news a couple of days ago.