Wobbly Wheels

[randyreindeer]

Just finally sussed out my steering vibration. I,ll set the scene for you.... Purchase one damaged and[very badly] repaired GS with 18" wheels, go over 60 and the steering wobbles and carries on until it drops below 30. Get wheels balanced. No difference. Get em balanced on the car. No difference. put it down to steering geometry and blame the crash and decide to live with it. Get tracking checked on all four wheels. no problem. Everything pointing where it should but still a slight pull to the left. Hmmm. Finally traced it to a sticking nearside front caliper. Now from cold, no problem, wet weather [and we get a lot of that], no problem but as soon as the brake reached a certain temp, it would bind. I've had stickin calipers on various cars over the years but never had one stick the way this one did. It wasn't enough to stop the car from rolling but enough to cause a nasty vibration. I only noticed it out of pure chance when i was washing the wheels. I noticed one was a lot warmer than the other. That set the alarm bells ringing. Took of both calipers, stripped, cleaned and copperslipped them and now everythings fine. I think my fuel economy has improved as well but maybe thats just a nice thought.

If you got a wobble, check your calipers :P

[MrSypher]

Randy, that's great that you found out what was causing your little problem.. I myself had a problem after I bought my rims... For some reason when I went over 40mph that car would shake, I had to get the rims rebalanced and realigned and I still had the shakes... What the problem was were that the rims were not hub-symmetric and I needed centering rings to put on the inside of each rim so they'd fit tight against the hubs... I drove around like that for almost a month... But now I learned my lesson and my GS rides smooth again.. Well not that smooth since I have 20" rims and coilovers...