Hi all,
I have been driving my Crossfire since May 2019. It is 2004 limited with auto trans.
It recently developed a steering wheel vibration at speeds 40 and up. Mostly noticeable at 40 and barely noticeable at 75. The vibration is shallow but frequent, I would say, more frequent than unbalanced wheels usually cause.
The weather has gotten cooler in the mornings (MA) and this is when it started. Also, after a 30 min highway ride the vibration becomes less noticeable.
All suspension is in top notch shape - new ball joints, new tie rod ends, shocks, control arm bushings, steering stabilizer, steering box bolts are tight, wheels have been road force balanced, wheel alignment done, hub bearings repacked and adjusted properly.
I took the driveshaft off since I saw the support bearing rubber retainer was deteriorating - installed new rubber retainer and bearing as well. The rubber donuts are in good shape. U-joint is binding very little, barely noticeable when moving by hand.
Engine mounts appear to be fine from what I can see.
One thing I noticed when spinning front wheels by hand is that drivers side wheel is a bit out of round - not rim, but tire is kind of bouncing a little - not sure if that could affect anything. If I had a spare set of wheels I could rule out the wheel issue, but I don`t...
Asking for advice / help with this matter - what else should I check? What am I missing? Could it be that the rubber gets stiff when it is cold, causing vibration?

 

I had something similar and it was an internal fault of a tyre, nothing to be seen externally..
New tyres and all was well again.

 

I'd also go with tires.

 

.


Count me in on the tires. Can you check the tires for the manufacture date? That might help with nailing down how many tires you need before buying any. If they are older than 6 or 7 years, or pretty worn, replace em anyway. If you replace one, make sure you also replace the one opposite that one (both fronts or both rears). IF/When you put new skins on come back right away and let us know the results, OK?


.

 

I had a lady bring her 05 coupe by once, the vibration and noise was so bad that the first thought was guibo's or differential.
I jacked up the rear and ran it up to 60, no noise at all.
She got a new set of tires and car was perfectly quiet.

 

Thanks for all comments!
I am looking into buying new tires or even a set of wheels and will report back as son as I replace them.

 

I have replaced two wheels (rims+tires) in the front - no improvement unfortunately. Vibration is still there. I do not have another set of rear wheels yet.

 

Where the tires wearing evenly all the way around, or kind of jagged ?

 

The tires are wearing evenly. The wheel alignment was done earlier this year and I double checked it recently (i have a camber/caster gauge).
The front wheels that I installed recently were not checked for balance, so they might be out of balance too, but the vibration stayed exactly the same as it was with other set of front wheels.
Could the brake rotors be givings me hard times?

 

Hey Superfragl

Im a former 2008 Cadillac CTS owner and this was a common problem that was discussed at great length on our forum.

What we share with the CTS are these very wide rims. I personally chased this issue on my own car, it drove me nuts to say the least. If you have already proven out front end parts wheels and tires, there is one more thing to try that may help, Road Force Tire Balancing. I also invested in Michelin tires and could not have been happier with this brand. The vibration was reduced significantly but was never eliminated. The very weird thing about this was sometimes on the way to work (commuter) it disappeared and on another day I could feel it....pretty crazy stuff.

Best of Luck,

Joe

 

I did try the road force balancing, which did not help... but I am not ruling out tires yet.
In my case the vibration gets less noticeable after a 30 min highway ride, which means either tires get warmed up and become softer (the sidewall which is very short and stiff) or something like engine mounts get softer from hot air under the hood (I don`t thick that is the case since vibration is not RPM dependent and is still there if I shift to neutral).
I have gone over front / rear suspension and steering earlier this year - no complaints there, and double checked everything recently again.
I have not replaced the rear tires yet (not in the budget right now). I also have not checked the rear differential fluid/operation. But the vibration is on steering wheel mostly, none on the e-brake handle and maybe barely any in the seat back...
I would also try the finish balancing (on-car balancing) but there are no shops around that do that. So I am thinking maybe I should try balancing beads or Ride-on of some sort?

 

Haha, I feel same way

 

I would take a few minutes and check the power steering pump. My original one started leaking and I was chasing a similar issue. If I accelerated hard and backed off up to about 70mph the steering wheel would shake until I slowed down under 50mph or less and then it would settle. Went through three sets of wheels and tires chasing it down. When I cracked open the old pump there was some wear in the vanes, my guess is that at some point the fluid would get pinned to the back of the reservoir allowing some air into the line. New pump cleared up much of the issue. Every once in a while it appears again, but nothing close to what it was.

 

Hey Superfragl,

I thought of something else to prove out, concerning that vibration.

Being a new owner of the XF Im on a major learning curve. I learned this morning we have the old style front spindle and wheel bearings. Ive replaced so many years ago Ive lost count.

My CTS and Chevy short bed trucks had bearing hubs, that were not serviceable but had to be replaced as a unit...expensive buggers.

To the point...Check and tighten the front wheel bearings per spec or replace if needed. It does not take much play to create a wobble in those big a.. wheels and tires.

Best of luck! keep diggin you'll find it!

Joe

 

I checked the power steering pump fluid level last night - all within specs. No leaks detected. I would hate replacing the pump only to find out it was not the cause of vibrations. Plus, my situation is a bit different - it vibrates mostly at 40mph, at 50 it is less noticeable and at 80 it is almost gone. It is not engine RPM related - I would put it in neutral at 40 mph and vibration will not change.
I feel that vibration feels lees if I accelerate real hard, maybe, because front wheels are not loaded as much?..

Joe,
I have taken the hubs apart, inspected the rollers and bearing races, repacked the bearings and adjusted properly using dial indicator. No change at all unfortunately...

 

Joe,
I have taken the hubs apart, inspected the rollers and bearing races, repacked the bearings and adjusted properly using dial indicator. No change at all unfortunately...

 

Mark the wheels and then swap them, if that helps make note of the positions. you can also rotate their position like 2 studs - use tape to keep track.

Also jack up and rotate tires against a pencil of other FIXED marker to see if there is visible runout RADIAL AND LATERAL and let us know whats what.

Woody

 

I will try to re position wheels 2 studs from where they are now.
I have checked the wheels for runout - rims are straight, tires have no lateral runout, but they do have a flat spot, where runout is at 1/8".
I spoke to a guy who has been doing wheel balancing for many years and has a great knowledge and experience. He said that tires that are a bit older (mine are 4 years old) and are wide and low profile tend to develop a flat spot after sitting for a few days, and it gets worse when it is cold. No matter how well you balance them or even road force balance them - you will still get vibration. He advised that I put max pressure indicated on the sidewall (in my case 51 psi) and run them for 5-10 miles - this will help pushing out that flat spot quicker. This morning I did what he said, drove 15 miles, reduced the pressure down to 35, drove another 10 miles and by the end of the trip the vibration was barely noticeable. Not sure if something got warmed up or the flat spot on the tires indeed has been reduced.

 

Update.
In order to make sure I did not miss any problem I removed the driveshaft, replaced rear flex joint (front one was fine), I also replaced the u-joint.
Then following this document AR41.10-P-0085-04A (use Google translate) I measured the drive-line angles and found that the most rear angle is out of spec by 1.5 degrees. I removed two spacers from under front differential mount - that brought all angles within specs and made almost a straight line between transmission yoke - driveshaft - rear end yoke.
Now I can say that if one drove the car, the vibration would never be noticed. I can feel it just a little at 40mph, but that`s more than likely coming from wheels and again - it is so faint that I am not going to worry about it.

 

I have spent way more money and time chasing a vibration issue in my 05' Crossfire Roadster than I would like to admit to myself. My solution after dealing with this for years was to just buy a new 2SS Convertible Camaro.

I'm done jacking with my Crossfire. Time to sell it. That being said, I would like to get the vibration fixed before sending her off to the next owner. @Superfragl What did you use to make these measurements? That document seems a bit hard to follow. I may need to get an engineer to help me.