NEED HELP WITH VIBRATING STEERING WHEEL
 

I give up. I hope there's somebody out there who is smarter than I am on this one:

Everything is rock solid until 50 mph. That's when the steering wheel starts shaking like a milk shake machine. Once I pass through 60 mph, everything is rock solid again. I've gone through 3 sets of tires and 2 sets of wheels to no avail. I've tried road-force balancing, and it doesn't make a bit of difference. It's not the drive shaft because the vibration is completely speed dependent, regardless of RPM. And it's not the rotors. The brakes are smooth as silk.

It has to be in the steering or suspension. I welcome any and all theories at this point.

Suspension will rarely cause a speed sensitive vibration. Rotating mass causes speed sensitive vibrations. A few quick questions please.

How many miles are on your car?
What wheel and tire package are you running?
Has the car been in any type of collision? Kissed a curb? Gone off road at a track?
Has a run-out check been done on the wheel, rotor and hub separately and as a completed assembly?
Is t the same shop that has road forced both sets of wheels and tires?

Thanks for your input.

How many miles are on your car? 63K

What wheel and tire package are you running? Started with the original 245/45 Pirellis on the 20x8 stock wheels for the first 25K. Then ran 245/45 INVOs on the stockers. Recently mounted 275/40 INVOs on 20x9 Rohana RC5s.

Has the car been in any type of collision? Kissed a curb? Gone off road at a track? Negative

Has a run-out check been done on the wheel, rotor and hub separately and as a completed assembly? No, but I'm on my second set of rotors with no change in the vibration.

Is t the same shop that has road forced both sets of wheels and tires?
Each package was road forced at 2 different shops. Same vibration throughout.

Before we drive ourselves crazy, the easiest and fastest way to eliminate wheels and tires as a cause is to install two known good wheels and tires. Is there a 5th Gen owner you know that would loan you their front wheels for a ten minute road test?

If the problem still exists then we check the rotor and hub with a run-out gauge.

There is a remote possibility that the cause is related to alignment and toe. I have seen a few instances of this with the the G8 and her cousin the Camaro with worn tie rod ends and whacked toe. This is a remote possibility. Do you know what your alignment specs are?

There is another possibility. I've been a pilot my entire adult life, going back to when I flew in the Navy. I know I'm anal retentive, and mechanics have often accused me of finding problems that are not really problems. Although the hands off steering wheel shake is significant (1 to 3 degrees back and forth), it's not so forceful that most people would notice it if they had both hands on the wheel. I sometimes wonder if this is not normal on these cars and I'm just too hard to please.

That notwithstanding, I know the wheels/tires are good. Even I'm not unlucky enough to get three different sets of bad ones.

The runout on the hub is a possibility, and I'll check that.

As for the alignment and toe. The car tracks perfectly true, so I don't think that's the source of the problem.

mine does it too and like you Ive been through multiple sets of wheels, alignments, etc. Mine only has 28K on it and after awhile I gave up the search and I just live with it. Curious to know what you find though.

Try bumping up tire psi 5lbs. My door tag on my ls with 245/55/18 on the steel heritage wheels call for 35psi all four corners. I run them around 38-39 to eliminate my steering wheel shake. My steering wheel probably has the 1-3 degree vibaration similar to yours. Three different sets of tires and balanced numorous times. I work at a tire shop and have tried everything since day one and this is the only thing that made it go away. I finaly blamed it on the side lugs on the tire slapping the road at the base 35psi pressure.

Thanks for letting me know. Sounds like maybe this is just a "feature" on the 5th generation chassis. Anybody else notice this?

Definatly not a feature. Theres is something afoul. With all you have described replacing i really wonder if something got bent or is broken. Did you buy the car new?

Yep. It's been that way since it came off the truck. It always starts at 50 mph, and stops at 60 mph. After that, you can accelerate all the way to 150 mph with no issues. Back when the car was still in warranty, dealer service dept could never find the problem.

Mine has always been smooth as glass. My gut would also be wheel/tire or confirm alignment. Sometimes spinning the tire a bit on the rim and rebalancing can help but its odd the problem lasted through so many different sets.

Kind of random but maybe the driveshaft is a bit unbalanced? Usually doesn't show up through the front wheel but grasping at straws since you tried so many other things. Its possible to have vibrations at odd mph ranges with it. Couldn't hurt to unbolt it and spin it a 1/4 rotation and see if anything changes.

I've had many cars in my life and most of the time when I would get a shake in the steering wheel it had to do with balancing, especially if it was good to a certain speed, than a few miles per hour past that it would shake. Once you get past the harmonics it would stop. When the shop rebalanced your tires did they completely clean off the adhesive from the other weights? One shop did not do that and it drove me nuts for 2 weeks until I removed off the tires, took off the new weights and cleaned up the entire inner rim and then had them rebalanced.

It also could be that the tire is out of round as that happened to me a couple of times.

Do you get any shaking in the seat of your pants as that would indicate the rear wheels, driveshaft or a combination of both?

Have you driven someone elses car to see it the shake is there? I have a 2011 with 26K on it and I don't have any shake, but the roads out in Phoenix are smooth as glass.

Good luck with it. :thumb:

Thanks for the suggestions. I've spun the tire on the rim 3 different times. I've even spun the wheel on the hub. I know this is a classic symptom of a wheel/tire out-of-balance or out-of-round problem, but it can't be at this point. There's no way I could have a wheel-related problem that causes vibration at the exact same speed on three different wheel/tire packages. That's why I posted here instead of on the wheel forum.

And it's not the drive shaft. The vibration is completely speed dependent, even at different RPMs.




Nothing else shakes except the steering wheel. :iono: I probably should drive another Camaro to see if I'm just obsessing over a quirk that other people don't even notice.

Kevin, if you bump it into neutral at the point of vibration does it go away? Reason being if it shakes when in neutral it would typically be a tire/wheel issue. If it only shakes under load it may be drivetrain related.