wheel shaking

I have a 2000 Outback and have had a problem with the steering wheel shaking like the tires are out of balance for some time now. This still happens after getting the tires re-balanced...this has been done numerous times with no luck. Also, the car pulls to the left while the alignment is dead on straight. I have had more than one shop check these problems out with no luck.....Any ideas?

If you can possibly give me any suggestions, I would very much appreciate it......Thanks, Brian.

Reply to
bc
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A good front end person should be able to diagnose and fix your problem. Some possiblities are a bent wheel or an out of round tire. If it's been in an accident or hit a curb or pothole hard, any number of suspension components could be damaged.

Has the car been in an accident or hit a curb hard? I have a '99 with over 90k miles on it and it has never been aligned, tracks straight as an arrow and wears tires evenly.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

Try moving the pairs of wheels from front to back, being very careful they are properly torqued. If the problem stays the same, probably not wheels or tires.

Carl

1 Lucky Texan

bc wrote:

Reply to
Carl 1 Lucky Texan

Don't forget the basics either. Check your tire pressures. A few psi low can do the same thing.

Reply to
Cam Penner

Reply to
Edward Hayes

I had the same thing happen to me following the front brake servicing. All was fine until the dealer greased up the pad shims.

Took months to find what was wrong. Conclusion, one rotor was very slightly warped. Pulled rotor and remounted (no machining) and it was acceptable. Very slightly shimmy at about 100 mph (yeah we drive this fast in Canada).

Tx.

Reply to
steam_mill

in

Reply to
tomcas

I have a 2000 Legacy Wagon, bought used last spring, that had a similar problem: The wheel would shake at 70 and 120kph (I'm in Canada but don't drive 1000MPH... :)). I had the wheels re-balanced - the guy at the shop told me they were really off balance - and the tires were out-of-round, i.e. some parts of the thread were worn deeper than others - I could see that the thread was not even when it was turning on the balancing rig. The balancing helpded, but the shake came back after a few days.

Finally fixed the problem, totally, when i put brand new winter tires on - Ooooh! No shake... Heaven... :) Needless to say, I am not putting the old tires back on in the spring...

Good luck

Nicolas

Reply to
Nicolas Dore

I have a 2000 Outback limited. I have been dealing with the shimmy and trcaking problem for 3 plus years now. I finally licked it. I took the car to an independent alignment and frame straightening shop. They did a real alignment. Finally, the car tracked dead on, as it should have, but I started to get a knocking sound from the front end which would dissipate after warm up. I removed the OEM firestones and replaced them with rebalanced Michelin Alpins. Guess what? The car tracked dead on and no shimmy and no knocking sound. I have been told that the OEM firestones may have had a belt or two that shifted. I suspect they were bad to begin with.

I really do like the Subaru but there are a number of things that were obviously done to keep costs low, tires being one, wipers being another. There are other areas that could be mentioned too.

But the car runs just fine now. It purrs!

Reply to
JDC

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