That shakey feeling

So im getting that vibration through the steering on motorways over 100km/h so i went yet again recently to get wheels balanced. Operator said he got them all balanced properly and that 2 were out a bit. Vibration is still there so im thinking i could have gotten a bad set of tyres from Camskill, Vredstein's ultrac sessantas. Is there anything else that can cause similar vibration? from what i remember when i had my winter wheels on at christmas there was no vibration. so thats what makes me think its wheel/tyre related. Surely if the wheels were buckled this would be spotted when trying to balance them. Im at a stage now where im thinking of just replacing the tyres to rule them out as being the issue. there is still lots of life left on them, less than 10k on them.

So looking at new tyres, few options i seen in 225/40/18:
Goodyears F1 symmetricals
Hankook ventus v12
Bridgestone REO50A
Falken 452's

Im liking the price of the Falkens and havent heard anything bad about them. Also hearing good stuff anout the Hankooks, only thing i know about the Bridgestones is that they are on a few Subaru models as standard, had the goodyears before so i know they are decent too.

Im leaning towards the Falkens at this stage in case i get new tyres and the problem is still there!

pain in the ass these little niggly things!

Dan can you get someone to swap wheels with for a start?? ruling out if its wheels or something else? next step then, how about swapping your tyres to the rear, or even compltete wheels etc etc, pity to go and buy new tyres if its the rims. Is it any worse under braking?

its fine under braking, it was worse under braking a few months ago, but that turned out to be a bad wheel hub i got after the old calipers seizing up once or twice. trying to find someone that will try my wheels the problem! i might try swap front with rear tomorrow to see if that helps. i think it is the wheels/tyres since it seemed to dissappear with my 17's with winter tyres were on for a few weeks.

dan u can drop over to me and u can try my 18 on

i had that same problem turned out i had a slight buckle in my wheel so i changed it to the rear and steering is fine now....when i got the new tyres recently and when they were balancing them they never even noticed i had a buckle...

[quote author=johnb4 link=topic=29692.msg344043#msg344043 date=1300785166]
dan u can drop over to me and u can try my 18 on

i had that same problem turned out i had a slight buckle in my wheel so i changed it to the rear and steering is fine now....when i got the new tyres recently and when they were balancing them they never even noticed i had a buckle...
[/quote]I tried swapping drivers side front with rear today. Made no difference I'll try the passenger side ones tomorrow. If its still the same ill try my standard 17" wheels with the winter tires. If vibration goes away with different wheels at least I have narrowed it down to tyre/18" wheels issue

so today i finally got around to swapping my 17" standard wheels on with the winter tyres on them and drove home, and guess what..... it drove so smoothly, no vibration noticeable at up to 130kmh, didnt try any higher.

So all i can think of now is to go to another tyre place and ask them to check the runout on the tyres. and maybe get the tyres rotated 180 degress on the alloys and then re-balanced. Anyone know what else i can try if that doesnt work short of getting a new set of tyres put on?

If there ia a fault in the tyres Dan there nothing you can do, i had this happen once in my lifetime of car ownership, it was spotted when they went to balance the new tyre on rim and it was waaayyyyyy out.

When you say you have tried your winters, did you just put the tyres onto your current rims? or was it complete tyre and rim change over?
If you only swapped the tyres and therefore have definitly pin pointed that its your Vred tyres, take them off and use them as a track day tyre or something, maybe give camskills a ring.. But id go for Potenza, Toyo, Goodyear F1, or Falkens next. The F1 are a great all round tyre i found, decent wearing and good grip all round.

The thread pattern on the Vreds are still not a pattern i would use personally on a 4wd. Im not saying that its this thats causing your vibration, just i think there is better out there.

no i totally swapped over the wheels from 18" with vredsteins to 17" with winter tyres. so problem is definitely with the Rota's or vredsteins

Ah rite, you need to find out if its rims or tyres, so your gonna have to seperate them unfortunetly. If someone had 2 18 rims you could use and get your vreds put on them.. and try.. if you have the vibration well then its tyres, or vice versa use someones 18" tyres on your rims to rule out or in your rims... im guessing you have a buckle or flat spot

Lads I have a set of 18 inch wheels i have bought myself and i am getting tyres fitted on them on saturday
Dan if you want you can throw your tyres on first , put the wheels on and drive around for a while then bring them back
so I can get my tyres fitted if you like
oh and just to throw it in the mix
guess what brand tyres I have to fit
same fookin ones
ill be getting them fitted at walkinstown roundabout saturday
also not sure if any use but have you tried the wheels and tyres on a different car what that be any help

I feel like DR Phil, bringing people together

verdesteins anonymous more like

[quote author=scoobycolm link=topic=29692.msg350651#msg350651 date=1304540029]
Lads I have a set of 18 inch wheels i have bought myself and i am getting tyres fitted on them on saturday
Dan if you want you can throw your tyres on first , put the wheels on and drive around for a while then bring them back
so I can get my tyres fitted if you like
oh and just to throw it in the mix
guess what brand tyres I have to fit
same fookin ones
ill be getting them fitted at walkinstown roundabout saturday
also not sure if any use but have you tried the wheels and tyres on a different car what that be any help
[/quote]

hopefully you have better luck with your ones! im going to a place tomorrow or friday to get my front 2 tyres rotated 180 degrees and re-balanced and if that doesnt help ill see can i get to cheap part worn ones and try with them. most places charge at least 10 euro for balancing so could cost me a small fortune to fix this.

Im hoping its all down to the muppet that originally fitted the tyres, there seems to be an awful lot of weights on each wheel from what ive read from doing some research if the flat spot on the tyre and flat spot on the alloy are close together this can mess things up, might be solved by deflating the tyre and rotating it through 180 degrees on the rim.

hope all works out with them
might be in the same boat myself so come saturday
ill post up how mine work out
[quote author=Altezza-Dan link=topic=29692.msg350674#msg350674 date=1304541780]
[quote author=scoobycolm link=topic=29692.msg350651#msg350651 date=1304540029]
Lads I have a set of 18 inch wheels i have bought myself and i am getting tyres fitted on them on saturday
Dan if you want you can throw your tyres on first , put the wheels on and drive around for a while then bring them back
so I can get my tyres fitted if you like
oh and just to throw it in the mix
guess what brand tyres I have to fit
same fookin ones
ill be getting them fitted at walkinstown roundabout saturday
also not sure if any use but have you tried the wheels and tyres on a different car what that be any help
[/quote]

hopefully you have better luck with your ones! im going to a place tomorrow or friday to get my front 2 tyres rotated 180 degrees and re-balanced and if that doesnt help ill see can i get to cheap part worn ones and try with them. most places charge at least 10 euro for balancing so could cost me a small fortune to fix this.

Im hoping its all down to the muppet that originally fitted the tyres, there seems to be an awful lot of weights on each wheel from what ive read from doing some research if the flat spot on the tyre and flat spot on the alloy are close together this can mess things up, might be solved by deflating the tyre and rotating it through 180 degrees on the rim.
[/quote]

so i might have found what could be causing the issue, i put my rota's and vredsteins back on the car this morning i popped the center caps out as i was mounting them back on the hub. I have the AP Racing calipers with 2 piece 335mm discs on the front. omne thing i noticed was that the Rotas seem to sit in more on the rear 2 hubs compared to the front 2 hubs, there could be maybe 2mm difference between the front compared to rear. so this means the fronts are stepped out wider than the rears by a few mm, would this cause the vibrations maybe? no vibrations with the smaller wheels, only the 18" Rota, so now im thinking its either the disc hubs are 2 big for my legacy or its something with the alloys.

Only thing i can think of is adding a 2mm spacer on the rears and see does that help

Wouldnt think so Dan tbh.. out of interest having you got centre fitting rings in wheels?

the wheels are hubcentric Ken, so they are the same diameter as the center bore on hubs, drove it home today, after refitting the wheels and i think they might be ok now, did feel as much vibration im not sure what i did different, i did clean the back of the wheels and the hubs, but i made sure wheels were centered perfect on the hub center before tightening lugs. ill go for a long drive tomorrow and check it properly

Cant remember what car it was but had a car before that had the reucer rings in aftermarket alloys, and the rings were missing and it was a pig to drive

[quote author=KENC link=topic=29692.msg350886#msg350886 date=1304620522]
Cant remember what car it was but had a car before that had the reucer rings in aftermarket alloys, and the rings were missing and it was a pig to drive
[/quote]

had the same as that before with a car, pig wasnt the word, the car just felt wrong to drive