Shimmy! Shimmy!
Jun 9th, 2010 by Hilary Char
Yay, roadtrip planning day #183. In addition to finding a driver and trying to decide which route to take (which I probably won’t do until Chicago) my inept roadtrip preparations have also included some minor stuff for my Subi. This amounted to checking fluids, changing the oil and mounting my summer wheels.
I’ve been riding on a set of Eagle F1s for the past two seasons and have been very happy with them in both wet and dry conditions. I enjoy driving and taking turns at unnecessarily high speeds, and these tires have been there for me each time.
When I mounted them last week there was significant vibration in the steering wheel, so I took them in to have them rebalanced. I drove home, noticing an improvement but there was still a shimmy in the wheel at 70+ and it periodically moved to where I could feel it in the seat but not the wheel. The guy told me that he was able to balance them for speeds up to 60, but no more due to a bent rim. When I asked which one, he replied, “All of them.”.
Aggravated, I took them to Rim & Wheel Works, in Waltham to investigate fixing this problem. (It’s worth it to note here that Rim & Wheel Works are good people and I highly recommend going there if you have the need. Ladies especially can go and have a fair, informative conversation without feeling like they are being patronized.) They told me that my rims were fine, and that they didn’t notice any strange wear on the tires and that maybe the alignment needed to be checked.
So now I have to decide if I want the alignment checked. Is it even worth it? Does anybody have any opinions? R&WW said they didn’t see any problems with the spacing rings that come with my wheels.
Tangentially, R&WW said they had trouble getting the lugs off, and were concerned that some yutz had put them on with some impact gun. The truth is that I had put them on by hand and only torqued them to 89ft-lbs (where 98 is supposed to be the norm). How could they have tightened up so much?
On a positive note, there is no horrible brake scraping or warped rotor problems since I had that fixed in the fall. Sigh…
Vibes are seldom or never cause by simple alignment errors. If you get the vibes always at the speed then something rotating is out of true. If it was fine before and is bad now right after the wheels the I would think it’s not worn suspension or steering components such as control arms or ends… In my experience unless the place spun them on a balancer they cant be sure because the wheel can be unbalanced in several dimensions.
You could try a dynamic balancing solution like the powder or beads. Supposedly results in a lifetime bance and very popular in offroading circles where rims are constantly getting mangled up.
I have stripped lugs so I can’t remove on of my wheels. FML.
Do you have water in your tires? The nitrogen folks have a video where Jay Leno’s friend brought a wheel he couldn’t get to balance over and they found it had a bunch of water from filling on regular air without a dryer or water trap. Incidentally, I’ve mounted up my spare and found it has some water in it. Pressure was fine so I’m guessing the dealer has been checking it every 5k when I drop in, so I can’t be sure who’s air to blame, factory or dealer.