My wife’s car. When it hits about 50 mph, there is a noticeable vibration, feels like primarily on the right hand side of the vehicle. It seems to smooth out right about 65-70 mph. Thought maybe it needed a front end alignment, so had that done today, but the problem is still there, unchanged. Is this dangerous? Ideas on what might be wrong?
tire out of balance.
It’s a Hyundai.
I had a similar problem with my '08 and it was a wheel bearing.
Very helpful. :rolleyes:
This. You might have lost a wheelweight. It doesn’t take much to unbalance a tire. Have it rebalanced and see if it goes away.
You could also look at the tire treads, to see if any of them are scalloped. If so, they’d need to be replaced.
It’s worse at 50, and goes away at 65-70, because at 50 it’s matching some natural resonance of the car, whatever the cause.
My older beater Corolla had the same problem. Balanced the tires with no change. Thinking the tire guys didn’t actually balanced them, I pulled off every weight on every wheel and brought it back for them to balance. Still no change.
It ended up being the drive shafts. First I’ve heard of these causing a freeway vibration. The guys at a repair shop lifted the car and ran the car with the wheels hanging free. Looking underneath, we noticed the right side drive shaft had a wobble. Odd, because I didn’t have any of the usual symptoms of a bad CV joint. No popping, etc.
I went home and installed rebuilt driveshafts on both sides and the vibration is gone.
Oh, and mine vibrated badly at 50mph, like your car.
Alignment doesn’t fix vibrations.
First guess is tire out of balance.
Second guess would be a tire with a shifted belt or other condition that would cause the tire to go out of round
Third would be a bad axle shaft.
If the car has less than 60K miles, the axles are under warranty. If you are the original owner, make that 100K miles and 10 years
I noticed a vibration similar to what you describe in my 2011 Elantra after fixing a flat tire with the can of gunk/air pump that came with the car instead of a spare. Took it to the dealership right after so they could fix it more permanently (at least I assume that’s what they did) and started to feel the shaking a week or so later. I guess the stuff inside the tire throws off the balance? Right as the vibration was getting bad enough where I was going to take it in to get looked at I picked up another nail in the other front tire. This time it wasn’t fixable. With two new front tires the vibration went away. Also now carry a spare instead.
What else do you expect? You start out identifying a vehicle as a Hyundai, and then go on to ask what’s wrong with it. Whatever other issues it may have, the fact that it is a Hyundai is unavoidably going to be the very worst thing wrong with it.
By the way, do you know how you can quadruple the resale value of a used Hyundai? Include a full tank of gasoline.
Wrong. Just wrong. OK Hyundai’s made in the 90s were crap. But since then they’ve improved greatly.
My son had a 2005 Elantra that he sold with 130K miles on it. Besides routine maintenance, he never had anything done to the car except for one recall which was free.
I have a 2007 Kia Spectra5 (which is basically the same car as the Elantra). I have 59K miles on it and it’s been to the dealership twice - once for a recall and once for a free fix to the ABS system under warranty. Otherwise routine maintenance.
My oldest daughter bought a 2010 Kia Soul. 80K miles and just routine maintenance.
My daughter-in-law has a 2008 Elantra with 90K miles. Guess what? Routine maintenance only.
My youngest daughter just bought a 2013 Kia Forte. Too early to tell, but with a 100K mile warranty, we’re not all that worried.
On the other hand my wife bought a PT Cruiser. What a POS. Water pump. Transmission rebuild. 3 of the 4 original tires went so defective that they couldn’t be balanced. Anti-sway bar bushings twice and were creaking again. And much, much more stuff. We sold it at 99K miles. Even though I tried to get the wife to buy a Kia or Hyundai, she bought a Nissan instead.
[moderator note]
Enough. If you don’t like Hyundais, don’t jump into Hyundai advice threads to say they suck. The threadshitting rule isn’t just for religion and the Apple/Microsoft wars, it applies to all threads in GQ. If you have nothing useful to contribute, don’t post.
[/moderator note]
Another vote for tire balance. It’s a cheap fix and you should be good.
Also, I drive a 2005 Hyundai Elantra that I bought new. She has 113,000+ miles on her with only very minor (read: inexpensive) issues since purchase. None engine related. She’s a champ.
Tire balance is definitely the first and simplest thing to try. If by chance the vehicle has been through any mud recently, it may have caked up mud behind the tire that is causing it to unbalance. You might be able to wash it out with a water hose and be your wife’s hero.
by your criteria, I put 164,000 on a Dodge Neon with only very minor issues. But I’m honest enough to admit that doesn’t make the Neon a great car.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Hyundai and Kia cars were garbage until about 2005/2006.
Thanks, guys. I bought it used, and it has about 70K miles on it, so I’m hoping it is not the axle issue. Going to try getting the tires balanced and cross my fingers.
It’s a long shot but did you buy it from a Hyundai dealer as a certified per-owned car? If so it carries the same 10/100 warranty on the power train* as the original owner has.
*Axles are considered power train by Hyundai.
Aside from chiming in again for wheel balance, I had a vibration recently that was solved by replacing worn tie rods. That car was much older than 2010, though.
Yes, I did. That’s great info. Haven’t had time to get the balance done yet, but if that doesn’t work or reveals the axle issue, I’ll take it to the dealer. Thank you.
:-). Glad I could help.
If you run into any hassle IM me.