Steering wheel vibration....

[roy2593]

Hi all,

I have had some bad vibration in my steering wheel for the last 3-4 weeks.

I have 168 style 20" aloys, which are only about 6 weeks old.

My car has had new brake pads and disks (rotors) front and rear, and new control arm bushes about a week before i had my alloys.

I took the car yesterday to get both front wheels re-balanced but it made no difference.

So i phoned the company where bought the aloys from for some advice. They asked if the spigot rings (hub centric rings) were in place and if i had put them on when i re-balanced the wheels, but they were. They then said that they would send another set of aluminnium rings to me just in case something was wrong with the original aluminnium set.

I spoke to my local dealer and they stated that it could never be the rings as the wheels were secured by the bolts and wouldnt make a difference.

I took the car there for them to check it over, they came up with that both ball joints wanted replacing and that was the cause of the vibration.
So i booked the car in to get done on Tuesday.

Today i was washing my car and thought i had nothing to loose by changing the spigot rings, as i took the passenger side off it sprung out, it was broken, it had split!. I replaced it with a new one and did the same with the drivers side, but that was in tact.

Would you believe it, no more vibration!!!

So i have cancelled the appointment with the dealer and have told them what it was, but they were not interested!!

£280 saved!

So, i have written this just in case someone else has the same problem.

Cheers,

Roy.

[alex3d]

This is so typical big dealer style! So if you supply after-market wheels with hub centric rings, would there be any use of making the hub centric rings if they where of no help!! Anyways! Good you found the problem and fixed it!

[huntertec]

Glad to hear you problem is fixed, just a note if you have verticle motion in the wheel then its usually a hub centric issue (or worse) which should be there all the time as opposed to balance which is generally speed sensitive, that is it comes in at certain speeds and the movement is lateral. I fitted a set of X5M wheels to my E53 05d and I was told by two BMW dealerships and a number of people on this forum that I would need spacers well fact is not required, Iv'e had my wheels balanced by two separate tyre shops and both said there was absolutly no gap to even fit a spacer on the front or rear. Last week to settle it while I was having a big brake kit fitted all round the mechanic measured the front and rear spiggots and both were exactly the same as the as the wheel centre. Problem with different overseas models they have at times very subtle changes IE: only the 'is' models came to AUS with airbag suspension on E53s. So I think you eventually find out for yourself.