Steering wheel shake, but braking and possibly wind related??
 

I have been fighting steering wheel shakes ever since I bought this car years ago. Both lower control arms, outer tie rod ends, lower ball joints, upper control arms, front rotors/pads/calipers, wheels (went from OEM 16's to 17's), and tires have been replaced over the last 20,000 miles.

When the brakes are wet or have dried out after a rain, I get an awful vibration and squeal when I brake for the first couple of times. The brakes are all OEM toyota parts and the front calipers are AC Delco rebuilt units. Its definately coming from the front, as I can feel it in the steering wheel.

What I suspect is a related issue is sometimes when I am driving down the highway I get next to zero steering wheel shake - at any speed. Then on some days at the exact same speed on the exact same road it is terrible. You can feel it in the floorboard of the car and the steering wheel feels like you are driving on cobblestones. If I hit the brakes when it is acting like this, I get very heavy vibration in the steering wheel like the brakes are warped. But then the steering might go back to "normal" at some random point thereafter.

Sometimes when I'm driving and the wind has picked up, the symptoms seem worse. But I do not understand how that could be possible and mabye its just me...

Has anyone dealt with something like this before? I've been meaning to take the front wheels off and look around, but have not gotten around it it.

hmm.. it sounds like you did everything to prevent shaking but did you check the tension rod bushings?

If I understand correctly, shot sway bar bushings should only cause a "clunk" noise. I'm not sure how it could affect straight line driving/braking.

yes you're right, but I'm talking about your tension rods (caster arms)

How about the inner tie rods? I replaced both inner and outer and no longer have any shake!

I have an 01 GS430 and experienced the same sort of annoying vibrations that everyone talks about. As you said there were days when it was almost not even noticeable. Seems like almost a year... I had the wheels rebalanced, tried carefully retorqing, etc.

I just solved the issue - by new brake rotors. I always have rotors turned when putting on new pads but that was about 20k miles ago. Out of desperation I figured I will just replace the rotors and pads and go with Lexus pads this time. I got the Bosch rotors from OReilly's at $55/ea and a set of Lexus pads.

All the vibrations at any speed are gone!! Stable - no vibrations and smooth as can be.

Does the car swerve like a drunk when you hit dips on the highway?


My car never really shook, but felt floaty. I changed out suspension, lower balljoints, had an alignment, and still there.
I ended up changing the caster bushings (by Daizen) and it all went away. Maybe its not that, but depending on yr of your car, might not hurt to check them out?
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