Car shakes at 65 mph and have had the wheels balanced twice. Also my local Chrysler dealer wont touch without the factory wheels. Replaced the 10 mm hub centric spacers with another brand in the front with no luck. A mechanic said I probably need to find a shop that balances the wheels on the car to be successful. Running out of Ideas and seen other having this issue with aftermarket wheels.

 

Do you feel the shake more in the seat or the sterring wheel? Seat would be a problem with the rear wheels, steering wheel with front. Does it go away at a higher speed?
Did it start doing this as soon as you changed the wheels or did it develop aftwerwards? If so is it getting worse?
The Chrysler dealership is full of crap if they won't touch it - balancing is done the same way for all types of wheels - factory or not - they either want the work or they don't. I think they don't want to get involved in your problem.
The advantage to balancing on the car is that all spinning parts are accounted for - in this case the rotors as well. On older cars with drum brakes this may have been more important than today with disc brakes. But if you haven't changed your rotors too, then it's unlikely that balancing on the vehicle will do anything for you. If you feel a pulsating in the brake pedal when applying the brakes, then the rotors may be warped, but you shouldn't feel much if anything at highway speed.
On rear wheel drive cars, they will shake when the universal joints on the driveshaft wear out. And the shaking can be really bad. If it's not the balance, then you may want to look at the universals. Take the car to a good alignment shop that will have a tech go for a ride with you so that he can experience the shake and go from there.

 

Thanks for the reply
The shake is only in the steering wheel and only between 60-70mph. The steering wheel vibrates and shakes back and forth if you take the hand off the wheel . The problem started after I took the wheels off and painted the calipers which I don't see the painting itself being the problem. Last time in for oil change the dealer said the steering stabilizer is leaking and probably shot. They wanted $400 for parts and installation of the stabilizer. I declined because its a $50 dollar part and half hour labor for myself to do it. I might try a custom hub centric ring to go along with the hub centric 10mm spacer. Lastly replace the stabilizer that I have ordered and hope for the best.

Thanks again

 

If you have had the wheels balanced twice, I doubt that is your issue. Did they check for a bent rim when on the balancer? A bent wheel can be balanced to perfect but still cause a problem once on the car.

Also it can be a tire bad that has seperation at high speed. If you put a new stabilizer on the car and it goes away, you are just covering over the problem for now. It will come back.

One thing I would try is too rotate the tires side to side and drive it for a day or two and see if it makes any difference. Driving a directional tire backwards for a few days won't hurt anything, just stay out of the rain.

James

 

Interesting that the problem didn't exist until the front wheels were removed and replaced after the calipers were painted. So what could happen at that time to cause this? Only two things I could imagine would be that the wheels were not indexed to their original position when reinstalled, causing an out of balance condition, or a wheel was not seated properly when the lugs were tightened. Irregardless of what the the dealer's tech did or didn't do, I'd pull each wheel, one at a time, rotate it one lug, reinstall and try it. Repeat till they've been installed in all positions. And, it should go without saying, tighten the lugs in the order recommended by the manual.

 

I read thru this a couple of times.....sometimes the problem was there all along and it surfaced at a time you took the wheels off...I take mine off all the time to clean the front rims, especially before a car show...if you don't have a cracked rim, it happens, and you have had them balanced as you say, then no chance of a weight being knocked while you had them off, and you re-installed them with a hub centric spacer and properly torgued them down....then, it may be tire is bad, and it was just coincidental to you having the wheel off....I would do just as suggested, take them off, check everything again yourself, and re-install....you didn't take the calipers apart, just painted them, correct?

 

I'm having the exact same problem at about 65. I too am running spacers, 10mm. I took my wheels off to paint the calipers. I put the wheels back on and then had a huge vibration in the steering wheel. I took the car to have all 4 wheels balanced and it made no difference. The tech told me that the spacers might have a little bit of play and that I should try and re-torque them in the correct pattern. I asked them if they would do it and they were too busy. Nice! Anyway, I tried that and the shaking was better but it's not the way it should be. So I'm thinking that it may very well be the spacers. I might try and run the car without the spacers to see if that's the issue. The only thing that I don't understand is why the car was ok before.

 

The other day I put 5mm spacers (up front only) on with my street racing tires and while driving to the track got the shakes real bad. I pulled them off and the shaking went away. Go figure.

 

I have never owned spacers. Is there a different torque pattern when using them? I wouldn't think so, but I don't know for sure. So if the tire shop was too busy to torque them in the correct pattern, then what pattern did they use? Time for a new shop without a doubt.

 

I had the same problem when I first got my car - took it back twice to the same place and still it shook. Finally went to a different place just for balancing and straight away it was gone. I tried moving the wheels round, checked the bearings and basically wasted a lot of time, and all it was was someone not doing their job properly Try somewhere else.

 

just have to make sure the spacers are hub centric, and they are seated well into the rim, before torquing them down....same pattern...but, balancing a tire/rim is an art form...you need to go to shop that does a lot of tire work...my Goodyear store, knows what I do with the cars, and spend a great deal of time dialing them in...

 

One overtorqued nut can cause a shimmy as well. I'd start there. Make sure you jack the car to get the wheels to settle into the hub properly.

 

Thinking the same thing, make sure the spacers are hub centric , and find good tire shop that will help, i use NTB , the guy who run the place gose to the Dragon abouit five times yr , so he dose a great job for me knowing that i go down and run it about 2-3 times yr ,

 

Thanks for all the suggestions. I might try running the front wheels without spacers and see what happens. I hope there is enough clearance with 35mm offset and 8.5 inch wide wheel. I know the center caps will not fit without the spacers. I will also try to find a good shop to have the wheels rebalanced and alignment checked.

 

Got the car back from the shop and they said the left front rim is not round and unable to be balanced. Got a new Stern ST1 on order hopefully that does the trick.