[63vetteman]

i have this steering wheel shimmy, like the kind you get when your tires are out of balance, and need to know what else causes it. the dealer wants to charge me $ 60 to do a wheel balance, so i took it and had it done for $ 28, but the problem's exactly the same as before. anybody got some experience in this problem? alignment's fine, tires are all inflated, ya i'm stumped.

 

[04 elantra cvvt]

Have you had the alignment checked? If so, do you have aftermarket wheels on the car?

If you haven't had the alignment checked, get it done. There is no way to tell by looking at the car unless something is really out of line.

If you have aftermarket wheels on the car, let a tire shop put the front tires on the balancer and watch them. Some of the wheels out there are not truley straight. If this is the problem take it to a shop that does on-the-car wheel balancing. This is the only way to balance a situation like that.

Good Luck!

 

[SuperGLS]

Is it when you are breaking? Could be the infamous warped rotors.

 

[vsolo]

or it could the the type of balancing check out

http://www.hmaservice.com/webtech/iindex.asp?id=394881862#_394881862

& look on

http://egt.gwebworks.com/garage.shtml Maintenance Tip# 7 I know I had this problem with my tires, & hey that'sd my post :abovelol:

& see if one of these are near you

http://128.242.141.111/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm

 

[playboyz28]

Check out the tires when they are spinning on the wheel balancing machine..the tire could be slightly seperated, it would balance out but the tire will still wobble..causing the steering wheel to shimmy.

Jason

 

[Leviathant]

Someone on the Edmunds Elantra forum mentioned that getting a center hub ring (I think that's what it was called) fixed the 70mph shimmy. I balanced my wheels all the frickin' time with my last set of tires, and it would be good for a few days and the shimmy would come back.

Did some Googling, this sounds like what the guy was talking about:
Hub centric rings are manufactured so that when they are installed on a vehicle, the wheels are located directly off of the centre flange of the brake drum or rotor. This is done to insure that the outer beads of the wheel are concentric with the wheel bearings. The result is a much truer, better balanced tire/wheel assembly. This is very important with modern high tech suspension systems.

**edit**

Here's the post in question:

#4128 of 4206 Fixed the shimmy problem! by hmowner May 15, 2004 (10:42 am)

While balancing the tires, the TireBarn people noticed that two of my steel OEM wheels were slightly warped and this caused the tire to wobbled a bit causing vibration at 65+ mph.

Hyundai Dealer near by was asking $80 for a new OEM steel wheel, so I purchased a set of new custom aluminum wheels instead (about $75 each). Unfortunately, this did NOT immediately remove the shimmy problem. At our wits end, the TireBarn people speculated that the wheel may not be mounted exactly at the center and installed "Center Hub Ring" which acts like a guide to ensure that the wheel gets mounted exactly at the center to the car.

Boy! that fixed the problem. I cannot feel any shimmy. It's smooth all the way to 95mph -- yeah I pushed Elantra to test when I could feel the shimmy, but no shimmy at all! :->

 

[SWortham]

Leviathant, that's correct. The hubcentric rings can solve the elusive steering wheel shimmy. They're generally only needed with aftermarket wheels though. The stock wheels are already built to be hubcentric for the XD.

I recently ordered hubcentric rings for my car. I've had 17" wheels installed for quite awhile now without problems, but over time a shimmy has developed and I'm hoping the rings will solve the problem.