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.

Reply to
JM
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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

Reply to
Charlie Allnut

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...

Reply to
JM

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

Reply to
Joe LaVigne

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

Reply to
High Tech Misfit

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.

Reply to
Paul

"JM" wrote in news:466090cc$0$4045$ snipped-for-privacy@news.aliant.net:

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 h*mo.

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.

Reply to
Tegger

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.)

Reply to
Dan Beaton

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.
Reply to
jim beam

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

Reply to
Michael Pardee

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.

Reply to
JM

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