High speed steering wheel shake at high speeds

Recently got my dad's '03 Jetta TDI (282,000km). I'm experiencing a high speed (>100km/h) shimmy in the steering wheel that's only present under load. As soon as I let off the gas, it immediately goes away. It's not a particularly intense vibration, but I don't want it causing other issues.

Here are the things that I consider relevant:

I got it safetied about three weeks ago, and had the front left coil spring and front left ball joint replaced.

After the safety of started to notice the shake, and got the wheels balanced (they are pretty worn) and aligned. The mechanic put a very large (3.5onces maybe?) Weight on the front right wheel. Neither of these things seemed to have helped.

I've jacked the car and didn't find any play in the front wheels, nor any torn boots on the CV joints. I also haven't heard any unusual sounds turning.

I'm wondering if it's something to do with having only a single spring coil replaced. I don't see why that would lead to a shake only under load though.

Any help is appreciated!

I had a similar issue. I can't remember if the boot was torn or not but inside one of he cv joints was a sliver of metal from the race or the bearing. I'd almost say pull the boot back and look but it would be messy. I think they say to turn the wheel till it hits the stop on a turn to check them. Can also try putting the fromt tires on the back to see if it's a noticeable difference

maybe some new tires and get them re balanced? i had the same issue, but i rotated my tires and it went away.

Tires are very likely the reason considering they are worn. My Jetta runs poorly on my abused and dented summer rims but it's absolutely brilliant on the new snows I ran the past winter... I had alignment issues till I put on the snows and realized everything is actually bang on

If the rotation and/or balancing the wheels doesn't do it, then swap the inner CV joints. Or replace them, your choice. The swap, in the case of the inners, works well and saves money.

The inner CV joints can develop pits in the races. It manifests as steering wheel shimmy during power on. Your case sounds like the classic symptoms. Swapping the CV joints side to side will relieve the problem because the pits get switched to the non-powered side in their new position. It is like using the CV joint for all you can before replacing them.

There are caveats with these. You need to clean and reassemble the CV joints, and you must take care to get the CV joint back together with the same races lined up. There are more details in other posts if you search on this subject.

But first, do like Vince says because that is a much easier fix!


Cheers,

PH

It could be as simple as a bad rim. Replacing one rim on my JSW fixed the shimmy. I don't remember if it was worse under acceleration or not since it started happening while my daughter was driving.

Thanks for all the replies!

I tried swapping front to back, then getting 4 new tires, and 3 wheel balances along the way, however the shimmy still there.

Having the slightly out of round rim on the back doesn't seem to reduce the shimmy, so it looks like my next option is to swap the inner CV joints. However before I do that, I will probably wait until I buy some on-rim winter tires in the off-chance that the new rims fix the issue.