Have a pretty bad wheel shake at 55-60mph, balanced the wheels, changed my ball joints/tie rods.

I just changed rotors and pads and the wheel shake got worse, lifted the car on a hoist and did the caliper test by spinning the wheel and they barely scrape the pads when I turn the wheel, what could it be besides caliper sticking?

 

Welcome to the world of owning a GS... Most people experience this problem around 80 mph but it is a problem that plagues many of us none the less. What year is your car? People clame the Daizen control arm bushing remedy the problem, others claim that tightening the steering rack fixes the problem. I have had no sucess with either remedy so if you find something to share.

 

Yeah I know of these problems, I got the daizen bushings but didn't install them yet. Im thinking its the caliper sticking because the wheels are hot after I go for a drive and brake lightly.. how much do rebuilt calipers run for?

 

You should also try tightening your lugs in a star pattern to the recommended torque of 76 ft-lb. I redo this every once in a while and it helps with the shimmy.

 

i bought my car with a shake when i brake lightly at 35 and 60. i thought it was warpped rotors so i decided to get some new brakes (brembo BBK) and installed them and shakes went alway. but after a month i had to install the stock brakes on (got new pads) and the car did not have any shakes for a few weeks but slowly the shake at 35 slowly came back.. very light shake. but now i am back on the brembos bbk.. so no more problem. when i had the shake i had stock 16inch wheels.

i know this doesn't really help ( ) but i thought i would just share what i experienced. maybe it could be useful .. somehow...

 

yep me too 55-60 shakes.... 80+ its all smooth sailing

 

i bought my car with the vibration, but mine turned out to be unbalanced front tires.

of course now my car doesn't know what "shake" is at all speed

 

i have slight shimmy also at high speeds.. i wonder what can get rid of it? it used to be worse but then i had my lower ball joints, outer tie rods and upper control arms replaced.. i also got daizen sway bar bushings - i have the control arm bushing kit but haven't installed it yet.. waiting to see if it'll fix the shimmy problem? anyone?

 

Anyone w/ aftermarket wheels though of checking if the wheel is hubcentric?

 

My GS300 was shaking badly above 65. Got the tires balanced a few times. Did not help. I also noticed that one side wheel in front was hotter than the other side after a drive. Ultimately I replaced the whole brakes on that side - new calipers and new pistons etc. but not the rotors. The rotors were OK. That was more than a year ago. No shakes at any speed from that time on. If a mechanic uses a bar or some other heavy tool to push the pistons back while replacing brakes the pistons get damaged and does not retrieve which caused the problem. Good luck

 

Hubcentric rings will need to be purchased if you have aftermarket wheels that are not hubcentric. What wheels do you have?

 

Morning all!

New to this forum, as well as being from over the pond in the UK. Had a good look through past couple of days and found a lot of great info.

After reading this thread with interest, my GS300 has the same problem...., I thought I'd add what i've heard over here. Apparently it's the wheels not being correctly balanced. They cant be balanced on a normal machine, they need a different type of balancer that the wheel fully bolts to, as if it were on the car. Here is a reply to a mail I sent to a guy who most Lex owners go to over here.

"The balance problem is due to the fact most places use the wheels centre hole as the mounting point on the balancer, the centre hole is 'cosmetic and not clinically central. I wrote a paper on this topic for the States and displayed highlights in LOC under the heading 'Balancing why it goes wrong' this might be worth a read."

When I get time I'm off down to him to get it sorted.

 

I had the same problem even after getting the hubcentric rings. The fix for me was getting my wheels spin balanced while mounted on the car.....not many places can do this anymore but it sure took care of the problem.

 

As a member here on CL I've gotten some great advice... Especially with this matter... Make sure the wheels are torqued at 76 ft lbs in a star pattern.. Belive it or not this really does help with the shaking issue Especially when your mechanic uses a air gun.. I came home and re did the front wheels last week and made a huge difference... ... If your car has over 75k miles than it may be your ball joints... Good Luck.. and let us know..

 

It very well could be a case of bad balancing. I just got new wheels, 3 were mounted and balanced at one shop, a very professional shop. The 4th wheel came in about week later, I had the wife drop it off to be mounted and balanced. She went to the wrong shop . I mounted that 4th wheel on the right front and had a pretty good shake at about 58 mph. So swapped the right front and right rear and no more shake at any speed. I strongly feel it has to be due to the balancing by the other shop