gsamouris

I bought a 95 C4 with 144,000 miles a week ago. It had front end vibration felt in the steering wheel and also by the passenger.
I had the tires (near new) balanced twice, Then discount tire did road force balancing . They say the tires are not the problem.
I spent $900 and had the front end done. (control arms, tie rods etc)
It did not fix the problem.
The mechanic said he felt click in steering area when moving the left front wheel and thinks it is the rack and pinion and wants $3000 and says that may not fix it.
The steering wheel has small amount of play and small amount of vertical movement when pulled up or down.
I am ready to sell it unless someone has an idea.
thanks
G

gsamouris

More information on the problem: The vibration is not felt until you reach 55 mph. It gets worse as you go faster. I have not been past 70.
It does it with the car in drive or in neutral. coasting or under power. It had a 4 wheel alignment by the previous owner a year ago and it was aligned when I had the front end parts changed.
It was static balanced the 1st time and that made it worse. the road forcee balancing was done and that helped but only improved it back to the way it was.
Could the front tires be bad even if they road force balancing? Would they still pass the balancing if the wheel was bent or a tire out of round etc?
Shocks and bearings seem to be OK........
I can't keep pouring money into it.

Tom400CFI

How was this assessed? I would check the tires carefully for roundness, checking, etc, I'd replace the shocks if they weren't new. It's not likely that the wheel bearings would cause that symptom.

Honestly...for some reason tire shops have never successfully/properly balanced our tires on our CTS-V. They can't do it. For some crazy reason however, *I* can balance them just fine. So now I just buy tires for it and mount/balance them myself. My point? If the shocks truly are good, then most likely thing is the balance isn't right.


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tlong

Sounds like a tire or wheel. Can you have them balanced on the car? What about brakes rotors? Cracked? Sticking caliper? Do you know anybody with a set of wheels and tires you could borrow?

Are they the same size front to back? If so swap them and check. You have to isolate tires wheels from suspension problem. It's usually a wheel out of round when weight is on it, not on a machine. Our cars should run quite smoothly but firm at hwy speed. Just eliminate possibilities.

gsamouris

Thanks for the replies. I cannot swap front to rear and do not know anyone with tires in las vegas. I will find someone to balance them on the car tomorrow. Brakes are nearly worn out but no problems with them.... Could they be causing it?

wikdwizard

It can be tough to tell a vibration from front to rear sometimes. You can rack it up and run it up to speed to verify, or use jackstands if you're careful. This would eliminate the driveline as a possibility too.

Yes, tires that "pass" the road force procedure can be junk in more than one way. What is the date code on them?

gsamouris

I believe the car sat for a while. How long, I don't know. It was only driven 1000 miles in the last year. I will check the date codes in the morning.

kg4fku

From my experience, C4's and most Corvettes seem to amplify tire/road issues as they are designed to offer maximum driver feedback. Therefore a small imbalance that may not noticed on any other car may be detrimental on a Corvette or any other sport car.

What is "near new"? How old are these tires and how many miles have been put on them? Performance tires tend to flat spot quickly and some never become round again.

Have the rims been checked to be true (runout)?

Have you checked the wheel bearings for excessive play and wear?

Have the suspension parts (shocks, springs, bushings) been tested and verified?

Have all U-joints and CV joints been checked in the drive line along with axle shafts and drive shaft?

$3k to replace what? You need a new mechanic!

Yes you can swap your staggered rims and tires front to rear. It will look weird and you should NOT keep them like that, but it may help isolate a single rim/tire combo as the culprit.

steven mack

I would take it to a shop that specializes in corvettes.

Joe AF

I had a similar problem; chased it for months. It turned out one of the retention clips on the back of a brake pad separated from the pad. Easy to check: get under the car and wiggle the brake calipers. If you find a sloppy one, odds are you have a failed brake pad, and thus your problem. Sometimes the easiest solution resolves the most difficult problem.

gsamouris

Thanks Joe, I'll check it. The front brakes are worn and will need replacement soon. It could be the problem.

gsamouris

I checked the date code on the tires it is week 46 of 2014. I know the car was only driven 1000 miles since last September, so it has sat for a while.

gsamouris

Solved the vibration problem! Everyone I heard from said tires. I took it back to Discount Tire for the 3rd time and insisted they road force balance them AGAIN. This time, a young tech found a problem and broke the tire down and re-positioned the tire on the rim and re-balanced. Problem solved. Thanks for all the replies.

Tom400CFI

Nice! Pays too be a little pushy.

Purple92

Glad to hear you found it.

Out of curiosity - was the amount of balance weight on that tire (before the final balance that corrected the problem) somewhat excessive ??? Anytime you see LOTS of weight on a tire - you need to be suspicious....

As for your earlier question - YES, a tire can balance and still be unusable - if you drilled a hole in the exact center of a piece of 18" square plate steel and put it on a tire balancing machine - it would balance...

There are also lots of shops out there with out of calibration balancers. Calibrating the balancer takes a fair amount of time or costs money and some places just don't do it as often as they should (or at all). I've personally seen one place that gave me back spin balanced tires/wheels that were 2+ oz out of balance. I had vibration at 20 MPH and up - took them to another shop - and had them run the wheels without taking any of the wheel weights off - 2 oz out - then they took the weights off and the imbalance dropped to less than an 1 oz off. The second shop then balanced the wheels on a good machine and they were just fine.

Just my $0.02 - but if the shocks are original on a 140K mile car - I would think about changing them out sooner than later - odds are that they are nowhere near close to what they should be in terms of damping.