I had springs installed on my car a week ago. Yesterday I took it in for an alignment. I notice on the freeway that my car has a very slight shaking feel to it every few seconds, almost rhythmic. Anyone know what it might be? Are computer alignments better than the other method? Mine was computer aligned.

Bat™

 

the car in general. I can feel it on the gas pedal, and pretty much throughout the car. It's very subtle, you can't visually see the steering wheel shake, but you can feel it.

Bat™

 

Does it happen at any particular speed?

 

I notice it at freeway speeds only.

Bat™

 

When I put wheels on my last car I had the same problem at freeway speeds as well. We corrected the problem by putting hubcentric rings inside the wheels. I dont know if your wheels already have them or need them but I thought Id share that with you.

 

Check your tires and make sure you don't have a case of belt separation. Look for one out-of-round or a lump in the tread.

 

What are hubcentric rings?

Bat™

 

If they removed the wheels you may need to have them rebalanced. I had a 240SX and it had to be balanced perfectly or it would shake at highway speeds. That would be my first guess on what is wrong and should be easily fixed.
Oh and you can try this out to see if balancing is indeed the problem. While it is shaking keep a steady speed and put very light pressure on the brakes and if it stops shaking, that is most likely your problem. Another thing you can try is when the car is shaking take a curve and see if it stops this will also indicate an out of balance problem.

 

The tires were just balanced prior to the alignment. I don't think that's the problem.

Bat™

 

This site has an explanation of what they do Bat

http://justforwheels.com/index.jsp?c...entric&sub=how

 

I bought new tires from a Goodyear dealer and for weeks had problems with front end shimmy. Took them back three or four times and each time they took the tires off and rebalanced them.

Finally I got fed up with them and brought the car to another dealer. He took them and put them on his machine and brought me back in the shop to show me that they were NOT balanced. I could feel the vibration in the machine it was so bad. He re-balanced them and they felt smooth as glass on the machine. Put them on the car and drove away and have gone back to him for tires ever since.

It could have been the fault of the first dealer's balancing machine or incompetent employees. Either way, don't always trust that they are in balance or in alignment. If you feel something's wrong -- chances are there is.

 

I'm going to Discount Tire to have them checked out. I'll let you guys know what happens.

Bat™

 

Took my car to the shop to have it checked out. They rebalanced the wheels. I guess tires have a tendancy to settle after putting some miles on them. The tech told me the rear wheels were putting out about 75-90 lbs of ground force, whatever that means. They made some adjustments and reduced it to about 40. Seems to be alot less vibration now. I'll know for sure tomorrow when I go up to the End of the Year Meet in Westminster.

Bat™