SOS - Tyre Nightmare - Please Help

[utterly83]

Hello All,

I hope someone can help, I recently had my local garage remove my winter tyres and fit summer tyres. It has ben broken ever since.

Symptoms;
[u]From cold, there is no shaking at any speed[/u]

Once i have been at 70mph for 2 mins the car begins to shake
This shaking remains between 40mph and 70mph.
If I travel at less than 40mph shaking stops
If i then go above 40mph again shaking resumes (unlike when its cold?).

This shaking only happens once i have been at at 70mph for 2 mins, but then it occurs between 40-70mph regardless

The shaking is constant in relation to road speed, not engine revs or gear or brakes.
Wheels and tyres perfectly balanced and true
Tyres brand new goodyear eagle f1s
18" wheels

Is there anything obvious this could be? Its worse than a wheel balance issue, but a similar shake/throb sensation and only occurs once i have hit 70mph for the first time.
It is not related to revs or gear and still happens in neutral so its unlikely to be drive shafts
I have a thule wing bar, but i do not believe buffeting/Shaking would occur at 40mph?

[utterly83]

Thanks everyone.

It is a BMW 130i

I had the tyres changed - I only have 1 set of wheels, with no spare.
Spigots, wheels bolts etc all unchanged.
They have had the wheels on/off the car 3 times now to check the wheels/tyres.
When I get the car back tonight, I will check the torque of the bolts.
The summer tyres are brand new goodyear eagle f1's

They are non-runflat tyres on a wheel designed for runflat tyres - however, every petrol head worth his salt bins the rft's so i doubt this is the problem.

I will get it aligned tomorrow on a local hunter rig. I am in Cardiff if anyone can recommend a local indy garage?

[utterly83]

I forgot to mention that this problem occured after they removed and refitted the wheels after failing to remove the winter tyres. Their run flat tyre specialist had the day off, they tried to remove the winters but failed and refitted them, so i had to come back another day to have the summer fitted.

This problem was present with the winter tyres, once they had refitted the wheels on day 1, sso i know it is not the summer tyres.

[utterly83]

Yes same set of wheels, same size tyres. BMW 208M wheels

I will get the car back and take it somewhere reassuringly expensive with a hunter laser alignment rig. Thanks everyone.

[utterly83]

caiss4 said:

So you say that the problem arose after this attempt to remove the winter tyres and you noticed when the winter tyres were put back on the car?

Sounds to me that they might have damaged the rims in an attempt to get the winter tyres off.

They had all the wheels off, tried to remove one tyre, failed and put all the wheels back on. The shaking started on this day.

On the next visit they got the summer tyres on, shaking still present.

When looking at the winter tyres now that they have been removed, they have destroyed one of the winter tyres by pulling the bead through the tyre where it touches the rim and marked one of the wheels 50% of the way around the rim- which they are denying. So I think the damage must have happened when they tried to remove the winter tyres.

I cant imagine how you could damage a wheel like this though? It seems the only logical explanation.

[utterly83]

rallycross said:

it wont be the tracking or bushes etc if was not doing it before.

sounds like a damaged rim when they tried to remove the tyre.

I think this is probably right.. i will take it somewhere else and get them to inspect the wheel. Thanks.

[utterly83]

RKi said:

You might find this thread interesting OP. http://lancerregister.com/showthread.php?t=417406

I had some Eagle f1's fitted to my car and experienced vibration through the steering wheel. Had my tyres rebalanced twice and the problem never went away. SO i fitted the tyres to another set of wheels i had and now all is fine. The wheels the f1's were originally fitted to are fine with other types of tyre....truly bizarre :s

Its a shame that they didn't find a fix...

I have had all four tyres rebalanced, the rears were removed from the wheels, wheels inspected, refitted. wheels, tyres all run straight and true. Brand new hunter wheel balancing machine, recently calibrated kind of rules out the tyres and wheels I think?

It still shakes after 5mins at 70mph.

Might it be a bush or bearing?

[utterly83]

Faxo said:

Is it through the steering wheel, or full car?

At work (Audi), Q3s have a problem with vibration, and it's the front arm rear bushes

Also, it's been lifted - trying to think of something that would've moved/been disturbed when lifted

The only thing I can think of is a driveshaft - if it's through the wheel, then this can be discounted. However, it's its through the car, I'd maybe start to question the rear driveshafts - it'd have to be a massive coincidence, but stranger things have happened

Good thinking, thanks. It is through the whole car, not the steering wheel. It was on a lift, rather than jacks. I think I will check the driveshafts for run out, any idea what the runout should be on a drive shaft?

[utterly83]

Faxo said:

Is it through the steering wheel, or full car?

At work (Audi), Q3s have a problem with vibration, and it's the front arm rear bushes

Also, it's been lifted - trying to think of something that would've moved/been disturbed when lifted

The only thing I can think of is a driveshaft - if it's through the wheel, then this can be discounted. However, it's its through the car, I'd maybe start to question the rear driveshafts - it'd have to be a massive coincidence, but stranger things have happened

Good thinking, thanks. It is through the whole car, not the steering wheel. It was on a lift, rather than jacks. I think I will check the driveshafts for run out, any idea what the runout should be on a drive shaft?

[utterly83]

Its done 77k miles.
I will try swapping wheels front to back. Very frustrating. I cant see a diagnostic helping, its unlikely to be anything electrical i think.

[utterly83]

cheers all. will report back.

[utterly83]

TimLambert7 said:

I have only flicked through the thread so it may have been mentioned already, but..

I had something quite like this and it turned out to be a sticking calliper. It was diagnosed by going for a drive and feeling the temperature of each rim, the offending wheels rim was vastly hotter than the others.

I had serious wobbling between certain speeds and very little either side of it.

Tim you nailed it..

OK, so... feeling daft but I lifted the car and one of the rear wheels barely spun... I have a binding brake disc/pad. Now I look again, the disc is blue... from over heating on the motorway. This makes perfect sense.
The disc and pads are badly worn anyway, but I don't want to replace them with brand new items and then have this reoccur...

Why would the pad bind to the disc? I assume some remedial work is needed like rebuilding the caliper or bleeding the system or something?

[utterly83]

So I replaced the discs and pads, and cleaned and lubricated the caliper’s slide pins and pad contact areas which were filthy. I peeled back the rubber boot surrounding the piston but it was immaculate under there so didn’t touch it. I reassembled everything and the caliper is still dragging and I warped another disc.
Does anyone have a comprehensive caliper rebuild guide or should I save the leg work and shell out the £90 quid for a new caliper?
Seems a shame as calipers are so simple