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Evening all, thought there might be some mechanically inclined individuals who could suggest some potential causes for the following:
- Recently had some warped front (car!) discs changed on warranty. They were causing vibration when braking.
- The discs may or may not have caused both front wheel bearings to go, these were replaced same time as discs.
- All is now smooth when braking, but when accelerating over around 60 mph I start to get steering wheel vibration. However, as soon as I take my foot off, it's totally smooth again. Suggests its not wheel balance as that should cause vibration whether accelerating or not, no?
- Google suggests a worn CV joint for vibration under acceleration, but that this should happen at any speed, not just at high speed.
So it seems the symptoms dont quite fit either wheel balance or worn CV joint. Any thoughts STW? I know the answer is to go back to the mechanic but wanted to check for any obvious causes.
Have you hut any big pot holes recently?
I've just had to replace two nearside wheels at they were buckled.
I'd go with wheel being out of balance.  Probably the easiest thing to check too.
The tyre is unevenly worn maybe?
Thanks for the replies so far.
No big potholes, it actually became apparent on my first motorway trip a day after picking up the car from the mechanic who did the brakes and bearings. Unfortunately the mechanic doesnt do wheel balance or laser alignment.
Really hoping it's balancing, local Kwik Fit would sort that pronto!
Appreciate that you say it happens at around 60mph, and you'd NEVER, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES exceed 70mph 😉, but can you drive through the vibration (i.e. does it go away when you carry on accelerating)?
That really sounds like a wheel balance issue.
Fadda, of course not, why would I do that?!
But with respect to your question, no, it starts about 60 and gets worse the closer to 70.00 mph I get.
We had this recently, tyres needed replacement as they were on the limit, worn had even wear causing the vibration.
Any easy check is to rotate the wheels yourself, it it improves you have put the offending wheel on the rear. (remember some tyres are directional, i.e left needs to stay on the left, and correct tyre pressures)
What kind of car is it? Could be a traction control system. Sometimes they can be thrown off by imbalances as simple as mismatched or worn tyres.
I'd start with balancing - giving the wheels half a turn might help, but it's not too spendy to get them balanced and eliminate that as the source.
Balance or buckled wheel would be my bet.
Start with the balancing but just give the wheels a quick eyeball first for any obvious flat spots/buckles/dents
It could also be a misshapen/unevenly worn tyre.
Should be picked up when balancing done.
As above, cheapest and easiest thing is to get the balancing checked.
But I've had this in the past and was caused by tyres - Pirelli P6000s which were known for going 50p shaped when worn.
DMF on the way out?
My OSF has a slow leak. If I allow the pressure on it to fall a bit I get a similar vibration to the one you describe. If the pressure is spot on, the vibration is much reduced, so I think I might also have one of the issues mentioned above, that is aggravatted by the low pressure.
Had exactly this - wheel balancing sorted it out.
Got new front tyres a while later, same problem was back with the new tyres. Got the garage to do the balancing again and problem went away.
It could also be damage to the tyre, I had a very small bulge in the sidewall of a (nearly brand new) tyre after bumping a kerb to avoid some loon pulling out without looking. Thought the wheel must have been bent, but I changed the tyre and the wobble went away.
The bulge in the tyre was barely even noticeable to the eye.
My money's on wheel balance - my brother had the same and eventually wheel balancing sorted it out.