Car shutters at 75mph+

DieselDeeds

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I’ve had my car for about 6k miles now and I love it. It has 51k miles total. It has the Rawtek dpf+egr delete and a Malone stage 2+ Tune. After a few thousand miles of driving it, my wife took clipped a curb going 15mph. When I say clip, I mean she ran it over with the front right tire. Now I don’t know (as I never paid too much attention before it happened), but it sort of shutters like an unbalanced wheel at anything above 75-80mph. The tires were brand new when I bought the car 6k miles ago. I’ve taken it to Firestone twice, Les Schwab twice, and each place said it was fine. They checked for bent wheels and they said they’re fine. I took it back to Les Schwab one more time and told them to use a road force balancer. They told me they used their road force balancer and found one of the TIRES is putting 28oz of pressure more than the others or something (I have no idea what this means). So.. what is my next step in diagnosing this? So I just need new tires? Is my axle bent? Wheel bearing? Anything will help- thanks!
 

Huskies2710

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I would hope they would check the rim of the tire in question..

Bent control arm? Maybe wheel bearings?
 

D-Cup

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I would have alignment checked/redone if you haven’t already done that.
There may be no single thing that is causing it - it may be a minute wheel bend, hardly noticeable, minor mis-alignment, AND minor damage to tire all adding up. But alignment is cheaper than replacing one of your tires or having a bent wheel repaired, so I would start there. Good luck and give us an update when you can.
 

Tdijarhead

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If she hit that curb and it did not “shutter” before, the tire needs replacing. After balancing and rebalancing and alignment and realignment the problem should have been resolved. The tires may have a road hazard warranty on them, but I think regardless you will have to replace that particular tire.

Or don’t drive above 75.
 

Radman

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Try swapping that front wheel with a rear one and see what happens.
 

Mythdoc

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In addition to all that the other posters have suggested, you should be aware that these vehicles are extremely sensitive to any deviation. You may not be able to get away with changing just one tire, if the tread on it is more than a couple 32 more than the other three. You may have to shave the tire down to match.

My wife is a great curb hitter, too.
 

DieselDeeds

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I would have alignment checked/redone if you haven’t already done that.
My alignment was done when I bought the car. Les Schwab did recheck my alignment for free and they said it was fine :(

Try swapping that front wheel with a rear one and see what happens.
Les Schwab moved the front tire to the rear to help the problem. It helped but still not a smooth ride at 85mph.


After balancing and rebalancing and alignment and realignment the problem should have been resolved. The tires may have a road hazard warranty on them, but I think regardless you will have to replace that particular tire.

Or don’t drive above 75.
I thought the same thing after a balance and alignment. I was considering new wheels and tires when these tires wore out so this incident might just expedite the new wheels and tires. The main reason why this is bothering me so much is because the q5 is an amazing car and I don’t want to be limited to 75mph. I take lots of road trips and believe me, when you have hundreds of miles of i405 in front of you going through California, staying below 75 feels like you’re going 20mph. And when I step into my wife’s hybrid ct200h and it floats on the freeway going 95, I get sad inside :(

In addition to all that the other posters have suggested, you should be aware that these vehicles are extremely sensitive to any deviation. You may not be able to get away with changing just one tire, if the tread on it is more than a couple 32 more than the other three.
If I change one tire, I’m changing all of them. My next setup for wheels and tires are 19” Konig Interforms with Atturo tires.
 
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D-Cup

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19”, huh?
My gf daily drives my ‘03 Jetta, and she’s rolling on 15s for a reason.
 

DieselDeeds

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19”, huh?
My gf daily drives my ‘03 Jetta, and she’s rolling on 15s for a reason.
Haha yeah- my q5 currently has the stock 20” wheels and tires. I know the difference between 19” and 20” is only an inch, but If I put another half inch between the road and I with some softer rubber, it should make for a softer and quieter ride.
 

Radman

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I just realized you have a Q5. Are the Q5's subject to the same vibration issues that the Touaregs have? (I'm not sure??)
It is well known that the Touaregs suffer from vibration issues that have been almost impossible to remedy. On my Touareg I get some vibration at highway speeds with 21" summer wheels, 20" winter wheels, had different tires, re-balanced, alignment etc and still some vibration.
There is a torque procedure to follow when installing the wheels that seems to have helped the situation. You may want to try loosening and re-torquing the wheels per the spec.
 

Mythdoc

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Haha yeah- my q5 currently has the stock 20” wheels and tires. I know the difference between 19” and 20” is only an inch, but If I put another half inch between the road and I with some softer rubber, it should make for a softer and quieter ride.


It will do that, at a noticeable cost in cornering and handling.
 

Mythdoc

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I just realized you have a Q5. Are the Q5's subject to the same vibration issues that the Touaregs have? (I'm not sure??)
It is well known that the Touaregs suffer from vibration issues that have been almost impossible to remedy. On my Touareg I get some vibration at highway speeds with 21" summer wheels, 20" winter wheels, had different tires, re-balanced, alignment etc and still some vibration.
There is a torque procedure to follow when installing the wheels that seems to have helped the situation. You may want to try loosening and re-torquing the wheels per the spec.


I haven’t heard of any Q5 drivers with the steering wheel shake issue. Mine is rock solid on both my 19 all seasons and my 20 summers.
 

DieselDeeds

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I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to let people know I found the problem. After taking it to Les Schwab and Firestone who couldn’t figure it out, I had to get under my car the a week ago and that’s when I saw a nice bulge on the inside of my tire. You can’t see it unless your parked on top of the bulge. So I replaced all 4 Perelli‘s (one of the loudest tires I’ve ever had) with 4 new Continental Control Contact Sport A/S and everything is great now. Holy smokes- it feels like a brand new car.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

rt_hawk

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My shake at idle and 70-75+ turned out to be a harmonic balancer! Check yours out and replace every 40-50k miles until someone makes a better product! I have 275/45R20’s s-Line rims with Continental extreme contact AWS tires, road force balanced, it helped, but the damper solved everything!
 
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