When im on the freeway or generally above 45mph, my steering wheel shakes really badly. a passenger in my car noted that the entire car was shaking, kinda like going through small bumps in the road. the steering wheel is worse. its more like trembling. I have had the car rotated and balanced many times by lexus. Something seems wrong, either that or the roads here are very bad, i cant tell which. any ideas?

p.s. if thats not road feel in a lexus, i dont know what is.

 

usually a vibration in the wheel and/or seat is a symptom of bad balancing. if you've already had balancing done, i would maybe say that your tires are worn unevenly which is causing some problems. i don't know how many miles you have on your car, but it's a possibility if you have had bad alignment or bad balancing in the past. do you have, or have you had, any alignment issues?

 

Almost all of the times the problem is due to lack of dynamic balancing of the tires/wheels. The weights that are attached can fall off too.

I wpuld start by going to another tire shop. There may be problem with the rim or the internals of the tire that can not be fixed with the balancing weights.

Share with us the age, milage and condition of the tires. After previous attempt of balancing, did you notice any dfference in shake?


Salim

 

I agree that the shaking issue is tire and/or balance related. The very first thing I would do is a four tire rotation followed by a test drive. Then I would get a tire balance on all four tires followed by another test. As a side note, I had similar issue with some older tires on a Mercedes. It turns out that I had a separated belt that manifested itself as shaking about 50 mph. It eventually fixed itself when the tread separated from the tire casing at 75 mph. Have you hit anything while driving - deep pothole, large rock, etc - that might have caused damage to a belt?

So, find the problem - hopefully it is just tire balancing - and then fix the problem.

 

well my car is a 2004 rx330 awd. This is my second set of these damn goodyears, and i just reached 60K miles, which means i need to get them changed at my next visit (said my rep). I didnt notice this before on the first set of tires. I think ill just hold up with the issue since i have less than 3K miles before my next visit. Ill see what happens when the tires do get changed. I just wanted to see if anybody else has had this problem.

 

I would suggest otherwise. The shake and vibration cause lateral stresses and may cause unnecessary wear.

Salim

 

It could also be something like a bent axle....

 

I have had the same symptoms you are describing -- maybe this will be helpful.

My car would begin to vibrate when the speed exceeded ~45mph. The faster I went, the worse it got. Took the car to the dealership and they said it could be a balancing problem. They took it in and actually balanced it for free. For about half a day the vibration stopped but eventually it came back.

Took it back to the dealership and they said it could be that the tires were wearing out unevenly -- usually happens when tires were not inflated properly. One specific thing they talked about was a wear pattern is called "cupping". You can try to see if this is happening to your tires by running your finger on the edge of the tire (where the wall and the part contacting the ground begins). First run it backward (front of car to back), then run it forward. If cupping is occurring you should feel excessive bumps when you run your finger forward. This kind of wear can cause the vibration that you are experiencing.

The service advisor said sometimes rotating the tires help. It will take a little bit of driving for the wear to even out. If not you need new tires. For me it was the former.

 

i appreciate all the responses...seems like the problem will most likely be the tires. seeing how they will be replaced within the month, im guessing i should just leave it be for now.

 

Have you looked at tires at places OTHER than the dealer? In addition, have you done a simple tire rotation yet to see if you have problems with some of the tires? I have never bought a replacement set of tires from the dealer for the simple reason that tire shops generally have a better selection. I am sure you have read the tire threads here to get a view of what others are driving.

Fwiw, I like NTB, a division of Sears now, and have purchased several sets of tires for my sedans there. I have not looked at them for SUV type tires yet.

Gary
'05 330

 

When ever you are working with generic part, $ wise it would make more sense to skip the dealer [Battery, tires etc].

If you price shop (for the same product), you will find substantial difference in let say the much maligned Integrity from Dealer or from a tire shop. Then you multiply by four and the outcome would be very obvious.

Salim

 

Or you can get top of the line tires for slightly less than what the dealer charges for what basically amounts to crap.

And chances are the dealer is suggesting the premature replacement of the tires and they don't know how to correctly balance the tires -- remember dealerships are monopolies, they don't have to really compete on price or service, in honestly they WANT the idiot customers, because those are the ones they can do the worst service too and charge the most too....

Look at: http://www.gsp9700.com/ and find a reputable shop to take a look at it, remember that it is not possible to have your warranty void if the place doe snot have a "Lexus" sign at front.

 

I like Discount Tire so much that I drive 100 miles to get to my closest one. They've always done me right.

 

i get all my tires from costco now b/c i love michelin. they have the oem michelin's there in stock most of the time and the price is very good. a few times a year costco does $60 off a set of four, which is nice as well.

in any case, costco does free lifetime rotations and balancing so if you see problems occurring you can get them corrected right away rather than make a special trip to the dealer and pay $ for it. also you can ask the techs if they notice any alignment issues from the old set and if so, they will strongly recommend getting an alignment so your new set doesn't get screwed up right off the bat. (costco doesn't do alignments, so they usually refer you to a couple of nearby shops that have good pricing)

FYI - we have almost 60k miles on our 04 RX after 4 years. we replaced the oem michelins once so far, at 50k miles. i never had a balancing or alignment problem during the life of the initial set; the only maintenance that was performed on the tires was the standard rotation at every 5k service interval.

 

i understand the the dealer is a rip. But im one of those guys that likes "lexus" workers touching my car. and if your going to say, "just because they work at the dealer doesnt mean that know *****", i just feel better. lol im one of those idiots they are trying to find.

now i also understand the eagles are horrible tires. But in all honesty, they look good, period.