Vibration from front end at highway speeds

BroncoAZ

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Apr 25, 2009
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Flagstaff, AZ
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2015 Touareg Lux, 2015 Passat 6MT, 2009 Jetta (long gone), 2011 Touareg (bought back 02/18)
I’m trying to figure out the vibration that shakes my steering wheel at highway speeds. When traveling at 75-80 mph there is a significant vibration that comes and goes. I say the vibration comes and goes because if it’s vibrating and I come to a turn on the freeway the vibration seems to disappear on the turn, only to continue when I return to straight. There are times it doesn’t vibrate at all, then after a turn it comes back. I drive the same highway weekly, the car doesn’t only vibrate on the same stretches of road. My wife’s Subaru doesn’t vibrate on the same stretches of road.

The car is a 2015 with 30K miles. I recently replaced the tires, went from a new set of the crap OEM Hankook Kinergy GT to Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus, there was no change in the vibration so it isn’t tire related. I didn’t change the tires for the vibration issue, the Pirelli have much better snow traction.

I’m thinking the issue must be related to one or both of the CV shafts, maybe there is a dry CV joint or something. Anyone know if I’m on the right track, and if this might be covered by the 2yr/unlimited mile CPO warranty? This car was a buyback that sat for 6 months in the desert, not sure if it would make a difference. I’ve had it for 4K miles.

Thanks!
 
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tdiatlast

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2009 Sportwagen (boughtback); 2014 Passat TDI SEL (boughtback)
I've had random FE vibration before, in different VAG autos, and found it was antiswaybar link bushings. Cheap, simple replacement.
Others with NMS Passats have had early link bushings failure.

Others for sure will weigh in.
 

akjdouglass

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I’m trying to figure out the vibration that shakes my steering wheel at highway speeds. When traveling at 75-80 mph there is a significant vibration that comes and goes. I say the vibration comes and goes because if it’s vibrating and I come to a turn on the freeway the vibration seems to disappear on the turn, only to continue when I return to straight. There are times it doesn’t vibrate at all, then after a turn it comes back. I drive the same highway weekly, the car doesn’t only vibrate on the same stretches of road. My wife’s Subaru doesn’t vibrate on the same stretches of road.

The car is a 2015 with 30K miles. I recently replaced the tires, went from a new set of the crap OEM Hankook Kinergy GT to Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus, there was no change in the vibration so it isn’t tire related. I didn’t change the tires for the vibration issue, the Pirelli have much better snow traction.

I’m thinking the issue must be related to one or both of the CV shafts, maybe there is a dry CV joint or something. Anyone know if I’m on the right track, and if this might be covered by the 2yr/unlimited mile CPO warranty? This car was a buyback that sat for 6 months in the desert, not sure if it would make a difference. I’ve had it for 4K miles.

Thanks!
Have your wheels and tires spin-balanced again to rule out tires as a cause of your problem. The tech may not have balanced one or more tires correctly, or a balance weight may have fallen off since they were installed.
Most tire installations come with lifetime balancing, so your cost to eliminate the problem could be $0.00 unless you are 100% positive both new and old tires were properly balanced.
 
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BroncoAZ

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I’ll tug on the antisway bar links and see if anything is loose.

I had the Hankook tires balanced at 28K miles, no change in the vibration, one of the rear tires needed 1/4 oz added. I haven’t had the Pirelli rebalanced, they went on a week ago Thursday and the vibration is the same as the Hankook. I’m 99.9% certain this is not a tire issue as the vibration is the same on two different sets.

I had a similar vibration issue on my Touareg that was a tire issue, but there was vibration all the time on all road surfaces. Discount tire ended up swapping the Yokohama tires for Michelin and the issue went away.
 
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joshuafail

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Springfield, MO
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I had the exact same issue that oddly enough, Pirellis solved. These are very good tires, bring them back to your shop and have them road forced again. If they’re still in balance, next stop would be a rim repair shop to check for an out-of-round wheel. It could be misshaped enough to cause a vibration when going straight on a smooth surface, but go away when load is applied to that side of the car, causing the tire to pick up and smooth it out.

I think a bad wheel is more likely. I went though 4 Continentals before swapping to Pirellis... it happens!
 

740GLE

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My vote is bent axle.

Hound the tire guy for another balance but be prepared for investigating a slight bent axle.

I've heard "raxles" are way cheaper than OEM and put them to shame. If it is the axle, good luck having the dealer replace, they will say you caused the issue with a pot hole or something.
 

tdiatlast

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Wouldn't a bent axle create a constant vibration, regardless of road imperfections?
 

BroncoAZ

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I had the exact same issue that oddly enough, Pirellis solved. These are very good tires, bring them back to your shop and have them road forced again. If they’re still in balance, next stop would be a rim repair shop to check for an out-of-round wheel. It could be misshaped enough to cause a vibration when going straight on a smooth surface, but go away when load is applied to that side of the car, causing the tire to pick up and smooth it out.

I think a bad wheel is more likely. I went though 4 Continentals before swapping to Pirellis... it happens!
I would think that a bent rim would never ride down the freeway smooth, it should be consistently bad. I had a 5 mile straight stretch on decent pavement today without any vibration at all.
 

BroncoAZ

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My vote is bent axle.

Hound the tire guy for another balance but be prepared for investigating a slight bent axle.

I've heard "raxles" are way cheaper than OEM and put them to shame. If it is the axle, good luck having the dealer replace, they will say you caused the issue with a pot hole or something.
I've got a decent relationship with my dealer, I am a contractor for them as well. I'll jack everything up next weekend and see if I can spot anything spinning the tires by hand.
 

jrm

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had my dpf heat shield recall done last week, they said that the orgional was to short and heat can melt the inner cv boot and cause grease to spray on the dpf causing a fire and also causing the inner cv to run dry- id check it out
 

740GLE

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Wouldn't a bent axle create a constant vibration, regardless of road imperfections?

my only thought was that as he turned it put different load on the axle that balanced it out thus removing the vibration.

But again that could be tires, or rims.
 

jrm

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FYI my new conti PureContact tires flatspot overnight and take about 10 miles to smooth out :eek: First set of tires that iv had do this, my old Michelins could sit a year and be smooth
 

tdi54

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I had issues with the vibration particularly under load at 70 MPH. Putting new set of tires by VW dealer and have them balanced using road force and the alignment at VW Dealer, the problem completely gone. And since then I had put over 30K still no vibration at all. I would take it to a reputable VW dealer to get it checked.
 
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BroncoAZ

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I’ll have mine checked by the dealer when I go there for work the first week of April. I’ll rotate my tires front to back this weekend and see if it makes any difference on my drive this week.
 

tjatkinson

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Cleveland, Tn
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2015 Passat
Interesting. I just got a 15 with 27k miles and have the exact same issue. Looks like they replaced the Tires Battery and possibly brake pads. I read somewhere that these were supposed to get new rotors also. Not the case with mine. I had the tires balanced and its much better but still there. They put Nitto Motivo tires on it. I will rotate them also to see if that helps.
 

roni024

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I received my 15 Passat TDI SEL DSG last week, and it does THE EXACT SAME THING! It's at the dealer now. I'll keep the board posted as to the outcome.

I'm not sure if this is related to your issues, but my car also pulls to the right and it seems like I can feel every pock and crack in the road. These might be separate items related to alignment and tires, but I thought I'd add it here.
 

740GLE

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I feel honored that we got new decent bridgestones and the car drives straight with no vibration.

and SEL shouldn't feel every crack in the road, should be very plush and grand tourish, even with the 18" rims
 

roni024

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Got the car back today. Dealership found a bent rim along with four junk tires that still had good tread on them. Dealer replaced the rim and put four new Goodyear Eagle RS-A's on. Also replaced the front sway bar ends/links due to a noise when going over bumps. Vibration is gone. Car doesn't pull to the right anymore, and they did not re-align it (it was aligned before I bought the car - still in spec). Tires all road-balanced.

All in all, I'm happy with it. I can still feel the roughness in the road more than my other Passat (2013 TDI SE) but I attribute that to the tires. When replacement time comes around I'll be going with Contis or Pirellis. I understand if the dealer put cheaper tires on now since it's coming out of their bottom-line on the sale. Better than nothing tho.
 

BroncoAZ

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I reverse my previous position that the vibration is not related to the tires. I had Discount rebalance my new tires a couple weeks ago, they said match balance. Early indications were that the issue was better, but a lesser vibration returned over the next 1000 miles. The tires must be synchronizing the out of balance condition for a while, then I go around a highway grade and there is a shake in the steering wheel coming out of the turn. On the next turn everything lines up again and the vibration is gone. Still annoying, but the last tire balance made a huge difference. I’m going to try and get it rebalanced again at another store, I might wait another 1000 miles until it’s due for a rotation.

I wish there was an option for Centramatic balancers for our cars, they rebalance each time you leave from a stop. They are common on over the road trucks, not sure why the tech isn’t readily available for passenger cars, they may be noisy or out of balance until a specific speed. I will likely buy a set for my Bronco when I get it back on the road, the 35” mud tires are always hard to balance.
 

BroncoAZ

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The tires are spinning on the wheels!

I had my tires balanced and rotated again last week. One tire had a screw in the tread, so it was remounted. A VW tech friend of mine had previously suggested that my tires could be spinning on the rims after balancing, so I marked my front tires/rims with a tire marker before leaving the tire shop. After a day of city driving the remounted tire had shifted on the rim .5", the other front tire was still good. I figured I'd get the tires rebalanced when I got back to Flagstaff. When I got home the remounted tire had moved about 3" and the other tire had moved .5". About half way through the trip home the balance got really bad, I'd guess that's when the tire moved on the rim. I'm not completely surprised that the tire that had been remounted could move on the wheel, but I'm surprised that the "dry" tire moved. I'll be heading to the tire shop tomorrow to see what can be done.
 

BroncoAZ

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I took the car back to Discount tire today, they seemed genuinely surprised to see the tires rotating on the rims, but the tire marker doesn’t lie. They used a buffer on the bead surface and reinstalled the tires with a bead sealer, hopefully it will correct the issue and keep the tires in balance.

The guy was first looking at swapping the tires out for a different set, but I told him I was pleased with these Pirelli if we could keep them balanced. I could have the exact same issue on a different set.
 

roni024

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That's very interesting. I've never heard of tires moving on the rims. You probably mentioned earlier in the thread, but since I'm lazy I'll just ask...

How old and how many miles are on your tires?
 

BroncoAZ

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Tires were installed in February 2018 (manufacture date 5117), right at 5K miles on them.

I put 200 miles on it since remounting, no movement yet.
 

BroncoAZ

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Got home today, both front tires spun on the rim. One was very minor, but the other was 3/4 inch. Back to the tire shop next weekend

I still think there is something else wrong in the front end, the vibration still comes and goes. At times today it was smooth at 80 mph, then a few miles later it was shaking the steering wheel. It doesn’t seem sensitive to pavement type or quality.

I may try removing both the front tires and running the car up to 80 mph on wood blocks to see if there is any vibration. I would set the front suspension components on wood blocks to put load on the suspension to keep the angles correct as if the car were running down the road. The rear tires would be on the ground chocked with the emergency brake set. I like this car, but the vibration is getting really annoying on my 140 mile each way highway commute.
 
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tdiatlast

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Huh? The tire issue needs to be resolved before you perform any drivetrain/life-threatening "running the car up to 80mph on wood blocks" scenario...which, by the way, sounds like a very, very bad idea.
 

BroncoAZ

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I’ve had similar vibration issues on two different sets of tires balanced at least 5 times between them and each set of tires rotated once. The tire spinning on the rim was recently identified, I don’t know if it was happening on the first set of tires. I asked the tire shop to check the rims for damage or a bend, they said all looks good. I’ll see what they say about spinning on the rim after they buffed/remounted/sealed the tires. The vibration at times today was as bad as it’s ever been, and the worse tire only shifted 3/4”, not 3” like before.

As for removing the tires and running the car, the idea is mainly verbalized due to my frustration with this issue. It sounds hokey but I can’t think of a better way to eliminate the tires from the equation while chasing vibration. If I just ran it on jack stands with the suspension hanging the CV shafts will be at much more extreme angles than normal driving. Picture 2’ sections of 6x6 boards running horizontally under the outer part of the suspension arms, not a couple small chunks of wood the car could fall off of. I don’t see where there is risk to the car or me if setup properly. The car has always been shake free under about 65 mph and sometimes it is shake free at 80 mph.

Option B is to pay the dealer to diag and hope it turns out to be something covered by warranty. Truth be told I’d be ok with spending some money if it actually fixed the issue. The shaking is not making me enjoy this car like I should.
 
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thundershorts

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Why not find someone with an older snap-on hand spun wheel balancer. they enable the operator to observe rim and tire runout. mine has been very useful for that purpose. It is sensitive down to 2 grams. If you weren't in Arizona, I'd also suspect water inside tire.
 

Funguy

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I read somewhere that racers apply something to the rims to prevent the tires from shifting like that. And I'm assuming your locking wheel bolts are in the correct position on the wheel?
 

BroncoAZ

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Why not find someone with an older snap-on hand spun wheel balancer. they enable the operator to observe rim and tire runout. mine has been very useful for that purpose. It is sensitive down to 2 grams. If you weren't in Arizona, I'd also suspect water inside tire.
That is a good idea. I don’t know where I’d find such a thing, but I could run a dial indicator against the rim surface while spinning the tire by hand.

I read somewhere that racers apply something to the rims to prevent the tires from shifting like that. And I'm assuming your locking wheel bolts are in the correct position on the wheel?
Across from the valve stem, correct? I’m not certain of their position at this time.
 

Funguy

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Across from the valve stem, correct? I’m not certain of their position at this time.

No the placement is immediately left or right of the valve stem. valve stem at twelve then it is at 11 or one oclock

UPDATE: i just noticed that the placement of the locking nut is regarding cars with wheel covers June 2019
 
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