Why is My Steering Wheel Shaking So Badly?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Above 60 mph, my 1988 Toyota’s steering wheel starts to shake. At 70, it’s quite bad–enough to make my hand vibrate and the headrests on my car shake some. At 75, it’s terrible and the car feels unsafe.

I just had my tires balanced and rotated, but the problem continues. My brother wrecked my car a year ago, but the repair company fixed the car quite nicely, and the shaking may have been a problem beforehand. Frankly, I can’t remember.

The kid at Sam’s Club–where I got the tires–told me, after rotating and balancing them recently, that they looked fine. He said they were not out of round and that the steel belts inside them were not broken.

Could a broken shock absorber cause this problem? Could an out of round tire cause it–and the kid just not see that it’s out of round? What is your opinion?

2

Take it to your mechanic and have it checked out. It sounds to me like a bad CV joint, but without actually looking or road-testing, who can tell?

3

Check the alignment too - maybe do that first, assuming you didn’t get it aligned when you got tires. The troubleshooting section in my Chilton’s also lists such things as front hub and wheel bearings going loose or worn, worn tie rod ends, and few other things. Hope you’ve got a mechanic you can trust - when you get right down to it, it could be a problem anywhere from your steering column (kind of unlikely, but scary) to where the rubber meets the road.

4

Many tires have something in them(wear bars?) that causes shaking like that above a certain MPH to let you know that the tire is almost bald…I learned that when I had that happen every time I got above 55. The tire wore more on the inside edge for some reason, so I didn’t guess it was the problem at first.

5

That’s your problem right there. Go to a legit mechanic. I am not one, but the vibes at high speeds leans toward tire issues.

6

In all likelihood it was from the accident your brother had. Most assuredly your car is a front wheel drive. Once they’ve been in an accident you can kiss having a smooth ride goodbye. I should know I hit a deer at 55 in my 90 cavalier. Didn’t do much physical damage at all to the car. BUT it never rode the same after that. You can have one hell of a good repair company and they will not be able to fix everything on a car that has been in a wreck. So to put it to you straight it’s basically cause the car was wrecked. If you wanted it really fixed it’d probably be really expensive and not worth it. As for the CV joint it could be that but I’m doubting it. Like I said it’s probably just been in an accident or two and FWD cars never really recover.

7

Is the shaking only in the steering wheel, or is it simply more pronounced in the steering wheel than anywhere else? High speed shaking is 99.9% tire/alignment problems.

Where does the shaking seem to originate from? Driver’s side rear, driver’s side front, passenger side rear, passenger side front, or is it car-wide? What speeds does it appear/disappear at? Is it RPM specific? What weather is it worse/better in?

My suggestion is to take it to a REAL mechanic, even Satan (the dealership) and take the mechanic for a short ride so he can experience the problem himself. If you’d rather not spend the money (and you should, it’s your safety we’re talking about) then you can go down this checklist to eliminate or specify the problems.

1: With the car parked and cold, check to see if the lugs are tight enough. Grab the wheel and shake as hard as you can, front to back and side to side. It should not move seperately from the vehicle. If it does move without shaking the vehicle as a whole, your hubs are probably bad. This is unlikely, but the easiest to check and so number 1.

2: Go to a real tire and brakes garage and have them re-mount and balance the wheels and tires. This is almost positively your problem.

3: Go to a real alignment shop (probably the same place) and get a computer controlled alignment.

4: Check the boots on your CV joints for grease leaks. You will have four joints, driver’s inner and outer and passenger’s inner and outer. Drive the car around a sharp turn slowly with your window down and radio off and listen for a creaking, ticking, tapping, or thumping noise that only appears during a turn. Go both right and left to check both sides.

5: Go to a frame shop that does computer controlled frame straightening and have them check your frame.

6: Find someone weighing approx. 200 lbs. Have them sit or stand on your bumper/hood and jump off. Also have them push down on the vehicle’s fenders as hard as they can and let off. Your vehicle should quickly raise itself level without bouncing. If it bounces or otherwise seems loose, your suspension probably needs replacing.

These go from basically free to rather expensive, and from probably it to not likely. Go down the list one by one, and you may stop when the problem disappears.

One final word of advice: Do not ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever go to Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, K-Mart, Target, or the like to get your vehicle serviced. NOT EVER. Do not EVER go to Pep Boy’s either. If you don’t think I know what I’m talking about, ask around the board. They’ll tell you to listen to me. DO NOT GO TO THESE PLACES! They are cheap, yes, but they are cheap! Your tires, and car as a whole, are responsible for your safety, and in some situations, your life. Saving $10 on tires is NOT WORTH IT!

Please don’t think I’m trying to be a jerk about this, but I cannot impress upon you enough, or anyone else, how important it is to NOT visit these sorts of places when your vehicle needs maintenance. These places generally do not care about you, your vehicle, or your safety. They are paid minimum wage and are unskilled. They have been taught how to take a wheel off, put it on the machine, and let the machine do the rest. I’m sure there are some very good mechanics working for them, but - strike that - if they were good, they’d be working elsewhere.

Some places that I have found are somewhat knowledgeable and reputable are NTB (National Tire and Battery) and Tires Plus+. Almost certainly the best place to get your vehicle worked on, however, would be a local Toyota dealership, but you will pay a premium.

Good luck fixing the problem! :slight_smile:

–Tim

8

What the hell are you doing 75 mph for in the first place, never mind in an old toyota. If you insist on going at that speed get your front wheels balanced.

9

Your car has rack and pinion steering. Please have someone knowegeable check the tie rods for wear. Both inner and outer. The outers are nearest the knuckle. The inners are protected by accordian style boots. They still can wear out. At low speeds the “slop cycle” of a worn tie rod may not match and cause vibration bad enough to be felt. Please let use know what the final cause and solution is.

10

When it happened w/me, it was a tire. And, until you get it checked out, don’t go fast - speaking from personal experience, it’s no fun dealing with a blow out at 75mph

11

And speaking as one who USED to perform all preventative maintenance on his vehicles; I just can’t STAND to do it nowadays!

My dad taught me a valuable lesson that should be learned by ALL who are not versed in auto repair and maintenance.
That there are THREE things (basically) that can go wrong with a vehicle.
#3) Things that are bothersome.
i.e. tape deck doesn’t work, ugly floor mats, no cup holder.

#2) Things that can leave you stranded.
i.e. clogged injectors, fouled plugs, etc.

#1) Things that can get you KILLED.
i.e. steering malfunction, poor tires, seat belt anchor broken, etc

Unfortunately, the average driver tends to get those problems repaired in the wrong order.
<“Hey, I can go for a few more weeks on them tires! But I NEED my tunes, NOW!”>

My point (and I do have one…) is to GET THEE TO A REPUTABLE MECHANIC NOW! Find someone reputable and STICK WITH THEM!
Best of luck.

12

“I just had my tires balanced and rotated”

I’d guess you might have lose lug nuts. They need to be hand tightened, that’s why one buys tires from a real tire store.
Course, are you sure they balanced them right & rotated them properly? Cause they have to rotate properly.

13

Didn’t even think of that. Yeah, check that too.

–Tim

14

Your car is possessed by a spirit. I suggest a crystal rub and some aroma therapy. Also, you might want to try dancing naked around it in the moonlight while chanting the Bill of Rights…

Or you could go to a mechanic and get the car fixed.

Both of these are valid options, though. We should not presume that one is better than the other, lest we fall prey to a narrow-minded arrogance.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeembo

15

I would have the whole front end checked out. I personaly am thinking the tie rods going to hell. Do you want to be going down the road at any speed when at least one tire turns hub cap up in relation to the road. It’s worse than a blowout and I’ve seen cars that have had one break going down a road. One hell of a mess.

It could also be the tires aren’t rated for the speeds your going, and the steel belts are seperating from the rest of the tire. You did buy tires rated for the high speed right?
It’s very important to buy tires that are rated for the speeds you will be going.

16

Let’s see…

The tires are from Pirelli and cost about $45 each.

At 70 mph, the entire car seems to shake. At around 75, very badly. I can feel the shaking on the floorboard on the driver’s side, but some of my passengers say they can also feel it where they are seated. The headrest on the front passenger seat shakes some when the seat is empty, as does my thumb when resting on the wheel.

I never drive faster than 75 mph–do I need special tires for that? What’s wrong with an old woman driving 75 (on the highway) anyway?

The 88 Toyota has about 76,000 miles on it.

By the way, at about 22 mph, the wheel wobbles. Either slower or faster, it goes away–until about 50 miles an hour. I always know when I’m driving 22 because the wobbling steering wheel starts.

Also this: the Sam’s Club kid rotated the tires and then put the front tires on the back and vice versa. Didn’t effect the shaking at all.

17

Ahh this makes sense then. When I have free time at work I surf websites and remeber a problem like this on http://www.cartalk.com but I can’t remember what they said was the cause I tried searcing the site but I couldn’t find it

18

My take is that one of your rims is bent.

If the rim is slightly bent out of shape (commonly the result of an accident) it might still give the appearance of being o.k. and escape simple detection.

At higher speeds though, the lack of proper balance will be more pronounced and it will start to violently shake as you have described.

My guess is that one of your front tire rims needs to be replaced. At a junkyard, you can expect to pay at least a hundred bucks for another one.

However, if you want to cheap it out, rotate the front tires with the two back ones and you will hardly notice any shaking at all.

My $.02

19

Had the tires balanced and rotated three days ago. No difference.

20

ANSWER: 4 BAD TIRES!

Took my car to another mechanic. He instantly said all four wheel are out of round. Said the Sam’s Club guys should have seen this instantly.

ALso turns out Sam’s Club did not rotate my tires as they said they had. Also, the manager of the tire repair section had lied about my Sam’s-purchased tires. Said they were “fine.”

Weren’t.