Originally Posted by BayAreaLex

This problem is really discouraging and seems to be extremely common on our cars for some reason.

Although the majority of the time it's a wheel balance issue, some cars are more proned to steering wheel shake for a given imbalance than others, and we seem to have gotten the short end of the stick with our GS cars.

First, steering wheel shimmy/shake at speed can be caused by improper wheel balance, a rim that is not straight/true, a tire that has excessive lateral "walk" (measured with a dial indicator), improper alignment, worn tie rods, or worn front suspension components/bushings.

First, don't put 100% faith into your tire shop's balancer. Case and point, I once had a steering wheel shimmy problem on a 1996 Mustang Cobra. I took it in to the local tire shop and they rebalanced. Still shimmy. A couple days later I took it into America Tires to get those same wheels rebalanced. They said the balance was significantly off, rebalanced, and it improved by 90%. There's certainly out of calibration equipment out there and no shortage of poor technicians who are either lazy or just plain don't know how to use their equipment. Also, sometimes it's not a matter of just sticking some wheel weights anywhere in the inner barrel and calling it good. A quality balancer will also tell you whether that weight should be favored towards the inside or outside end of the wheel. How often do techs pay attention to that detail? Probably infrequently.

Start off with a rebalance at a reputable tire shop. Have them confirm the balance that was done by your shop. If that doesn't fix it, measure the lateral movement of the rim and tire with a dial indicator (you can look up youtube videos for this). Finally, inspect the tie rods and suspension components for play.

You can always swap your wheels front to back to see if it makes a difference.

As mentioned above, a big part of it is that our cars are getting older, bushing tolerances are opening up. Under these circumstances, a minor imbalance may now be noticeable whereas when the car was new, you would have never even felt it. Chances are that if you have a good balance and fresh components like tie rods, balljoints and steering rack bushings, this problem would be history.

I've been chasing a minor steering wheel shimmy myself and have not yet been able to pin-point it conclusively (and that's with new rims and tires)

Next, if your tire is out of round or has a flat spot, there isn't a balancer on the planet that will solve your problem.

Originally Posted by lextout

The culprit was that the new crappy tires were out of round, so they replaced my new crap tires with new ones. Problem solved,this happened after 3 re-balances and arguing with the manager as they try there best to not have to replace the new crap tires they sold you in the first place in the first place and just find more excuses.