2005 SRT - Issue Steering wheel wobble/vibration starts at 40mph not under braking not felt through car, only steering wheel . Car has 135,000 on it.

Items checked or completed:
- wheels balanced 3 different times at two different shops
- Wheels road force done 2 rims at 3lbs of force the other two at 12lbs
- Alignment done (there is a question I have on this)
- Two tires are new due to flat or bent rim (Conti DWS)
- Rims are not stock but are .5" wider and run stock tire sizes
- Replaced upper control arm on driver side due to play
- replaced brake pads and rotors (cut original rotors and replaced them with no change)
- replaced wheel bearings
- air pressure checked
- tierod assemble changed and steering shock changed
- new hub centric rings
- motor mount and trans mount changed out 12,000 miles ago

The issue will come and go with some cases no issues will appear at first so it suggests to me that something is not staying put and is moving. I checked for play in the lower control arms and there is a little play but it is equal on all four bushings.

The car was aligned using a Hunter alignment machine, however upon some research the specs are different than is what is in the Crossfire service manual, not drastic but it would appear that the toe measurements are not the same, in fact their book shows two different front toe specs one for 04-06 and another for 04-08. Only other spec differeince in their book between the two relates to tread width which is slightly narrower on the 04-08 line.

When we began the first alignment with a toe number of .33 per the machine the issue was still there, pulling it in a bit more to .25 reduced the issue a bit more. Camber and castor are within spec.

The thing is there are some times when this issue is completely gone for say 10 miles and then will suddenly appear again.

Tech and I checked the steering and everything is tight and to spec, no ball joint wobble/play can be felt or seen.

Any ideas where to look?

 

Steering damper?
You must have changed this some time?

 

Yea, he said :

 

Sorry, I scanned it for the word damper and reread it twice.
How long ago though?
How much play in the steering wheel?

 

just changed the damper so its new, steering wheel play is fairly minimal once the car is running maybe a degree or two off the center mark.

The funny part is that the frequency can be either a rocking (slow movement) or fast near 55 mph which tells me its not in the wheels/tires. Temperture has nothing to do with it as I have seen the issue when cold, warmed up, and after 100 mile of driving.

 

I recently purchased new TSW wheels that came with metal hub rings, installed with new tires and got small amount of shaking above 40 mph. I got an alignment done since I have lifetime alignment at Firestone, but still same issue. So I got all 4 wheels balanced again and still same issue.

Then I remembered the first time I placed the new metal hub rings in each wheel that it was loose enough to fall out the wheel or slide off the disk rotor hub. Whereas my old Petrol wheels had plastic hub rings that fit snug in each wheel. So I installed the old plastic hub rings and no more steering wheel shakes at all.

Shade

 

I went through the same thing with my old tsw wheels, the new wheels came with metal rings that sat too far off the hub and had to put in plastic...still have issues

 

I had a seemingly intermittent shake up front and finally realized it was always after taking it in to the shop (inspection, and other work) I found that they torqued the lugs much higher than recommended. When I worked on it and put them back on at 81 pounds it went away. Wouldn't think it would matter but did seem to help for me.

 

I did ineed check the Tq on the bolts are we are all snug at 81. At first I thought that may have been the issue but it has proved not to be the source of the issue.

 

The only time I've ever experience anything that I would call a"wobble" on any car I've owned in the past, it was usually because of ball joints.

 

Try swapping the tires like in an X to see if they are road following the pavement. Woody