Ok heres whats happening, at about 80 mph my whole steering wheel starts to shake. You may say tire balance but thats not it becuase I just balanced them. I do have hubcentric rings on my ADR's. When I put my stockers on the front its as smooth as it can be. When I lift the car in the air and spin the wheels, they look like they are bent or not sitting on there right. I am sure they are not bent becuase I havent hit anything and ALL four shouldnt be bent. Also everything on my front end is tight so thats outta the question. Anyone got any ideas?

 

Sounds like it could be a bent wheel. You really can't check that properly with the wheel on the car though. You don't have to have hit anything that you are aware of. Sometimes all it takes is a pothole or sunken manhole cover. You should try moving the front wheels to the back and see if it is any different.

Also, make sure there aren't any small screw heads preventing the wheels from seating properly on the rotor hat. That could affect your aftermarket wheels but not the stock ones.

 

check your hubs and wheels for rust or debris that may be preventing the wheel from seating properly as well.

 

If the stockers work, your problem lies in the rim/tire obviously. Bad air pressure or anything like that in the tire shouldn't cause that problem.

So you have a rim problem. One of them is probbaly bent. All it takes is a pothole or a dip in the road.

 

Mine does this around 70 miles per hour at 3000 rpm but disappears if i go faster or if i slow down.

 

only thing though is they would have had one heck of a time balancing it if the rim is bent.

here's what I'd do.

1. try it without the rings (I know people on here swear by them, but how much is a piece of plastic really holding up? plus I've now driven 10k with only 3 of them and the one that's missing is on a front wheel, when i was in houston I was hitting 90 on the freeway and no vibrations at all)
2. if that doesn't fix it try taking it back to get balanced and see how far they are off from when they were balanced.

btw, good point keneipp, what happens at 83 or 85?

3. allignment lately?
4. ball joints, tie rods, etc.

also I think your eye's might be playing tricks on you. if you could see the wheel was bent by spinning with your hand your whould KNOW it was bent at like 30 mph.

 

ill hit 83 or 85 tonight on the way home and when i get back ill post what happens. if i remember correctly it stop shaking only seems to happen right around 70mph @3000RPMs

made it up to 95mph last night on the way home and again this morning. around 68 to 75 it would vibrate but after 75 it smoothed out so is that whats known as the sweet spot???

 

i have exactly same problem. when i got my new (used) rims, vibration magically disappeared but it started again. but then again, i've run over numerous pot holes since i put the new rims on.
most likely bent rim(s) i'd say

 

Make sure the tires are balanced correctly. Ive had a problem with tire shops that dont know what they are doing and improperly balanced my tires. This happened when i got my tire pressure monitoring system installed. The jackass's at Peerless Tires didn't balance my wheels correctly. Had bad vibrations. Went to Discount tire and they correct the balance issue. Problem solved.

Here ya go, found this on About.com

There are many things that can cause a wheel end vibration, but only two of these are directly related to tires - balance and uniformity.

Before we get into the tire items, let me list some of the other items:

Off center mounting of the tire to the rim
Off center mounting of the rim to the hub
Off center hub.
Out of balance rotors and other rotating components
There are others

Balance (which is really both a tire and a rim item) is merely distributing the weight so it is even around the circumference. In effect, the balance weight is sized and placed such that it compensates for the uneven mass distribution of the rim and tire.

Static balance (bubble balance) only compensates for the circumferential component. My estimate is that this takes care of 50% of the problem.

Dynamic balance also compensates for the side to side (or off center) component. I think this takes care of 30% more (for a total of 80%)

So when you use a bubble balancer, putting half the weight on one side and half the weight on the other side compensates for mass in the center. Putting the weight all on the outside (or inside) is like compsenating for the mass being highly off center (an unlikely situation).

But what if the wheel is slightly cocked? Then dynamic balancing will compensate for this and the weights would be placed accordingly.

The last tire related item is uniformity, which I think is the last 20% - split 5% wheel, 15% tire. The best way to look at this is "out of round", however this term isn't 100% accurate. Uniformity is more closely related to deflection variation of the loaded tire.

This means that even a perfectly balanced rim and tire assembly might cause a vibration. Since the tire is mounted on the rim: the rim could be the cause, the tire could be the cuase, or it could be a combination of the 2. In fact some vehicle manufacturers require the tire and rim manufacturers to mark their components and then the vehicle assembly plants match these marks to produce a more uniform assembly.



or......

Could be a bent rim! laugh.gif GL with it. fing02.gif

 

so what would vibration at only low speeds be caused by? My steering wheel is vibrating at 25-40 MPH, but then it stops higher or lower speeds then that.