01 Accord Coupe, shake in wheel at highway speeds

Hi all,

Just bought an 01 Accord coupe, 5 speed. One of the things I asked the
place I bought it from to take care of before I bought the car was a wobble
in the steering around highway speeds, say 100 km/h for example. At the
time they just replaced the front tires outright and said it was fixed, but
it wasn't, so they asked me to bring it back in.

This week they had the car for 4 days and eliminated the tires (replaced),
rims (tried the car with another set of tires and rims), alignment, brake
rotors (replaced), and anything else they could think of. They were good
enough to supply me with a rental car free of charge, and so far nothing has
cost me a dime, but the wobble is still there, (although better) and they're
out of ideas.

They want to take the car to the Honda dealership next week and see if they
can track down the cause -- but I was wondering if anyone here had heard of
or had a similar problem or might suggest what else could be causing this..
just to satisfy my own curiousity if nothing else.

 

The usual cause of a shimmy is the wheel/tire being out of balance.

You mentioned a long list of remedies they tried-- but didn't mention the
most obvious one-- a hi speed computerized balance job.

Charlie

 

Sorry, they did try a balance job, using a roadforce balancer, which
apparently is as accurate as you can get.. and even tried "indexing" the
tires on the rims, and still had no luck...

 

Ball Joints, Tie Rods, wheel balance come immediately to mind...

 

I concur with Joe L. Sounds like a failing ball joint.

 

A few years ago I had a set of Falken tires put on my '00 Accord. They had a
shimmy at highway speeds. I tried having them rebalanced a couple of times
with no luck. A second set of the same tires produced the same result. I
finally gave up and had a set of Yokohama tires installed. They've been
great. Never did find out what the problem was with the Falkens.

 

My God how stupid these monkeys are. They are dumber than the proverbial
bag of hammers. I would call them "people", but they are not intelligent
enough to be associated with the genus homo.

Do the following (certainly nobody has up to now):

Raise the car on a hoist maybe a foot off the ground. Start the engine,
put the car in gear and let it idle. One of the front wheels will spin,
the other may require a hand push to get it going.

Now, get in front of the car and observe the tires as they spin around.
Do they spin dead straight and true, or is there a side-to-side wobble,
or an up-and-down hop, or both?

If the tires do ANYTHING but spin dead-nuts true, they are badly mounted
and there is your vibration in spite of perfect static/dynamic balance.

You can perform the same for the non-driven rear wheels, but you need to
spin them by hand.

 

Wow! That's quite the effort. OK, here's an oddball situation. Aftermarket
wheels had been put on a Mustang. A vibration occurred, and it took a lot
of sleuthing to find the problem. The factory wheels had a small counterbore
around the bolt hole where it met the hub. The aftermarket wheels were
flush. In the factory, a small retaining ring was used the hold the hub in
place for easier assembly. The factory wheels cleared the ring; the
aftermarket wheels just caught on it.

Dan

(This account is not used for email.)

 

go get your money back and buy another vehicle from somewhere that knows
what they're doing. seriously. if they can't track this problem down,
they're incompetent. they're not diagnosing the problem - they're
simply guessing and replacing stuff and hoping.

diagnosis:
1. ensure wheels are ok and that the tires are balanced with no lumps.
2. check moving parts of the suspension - joints, shocks, bushings, etc.
front and rear.
3. check other moving parts like drive shafts. a thrown bearing in the
inner driveshaft slider will make the steering wobble most effectively.

 

FWIW, at least one case of Honda shake was tracked to a bad drive axle. I
don't know if there was a test before replacing the axle or if the axle was
replaced and the shake disappeared.

Mike

 

A quick follow up; the dealership from which I bought the car arranged for
me to take it to the local Honda dealer, which I did. They called me a few
hours later to say all 4 wheels had been out of balance. I picked it up,
and it's great now -- I think sometimes I can feel a little vibration at
that speed, but I can't be sure that isn't just the road and/or cheap tires.
The (steering) wheel is rock solid however which is great. I guess I know
where not to go for service.