65 mph + acceleration = steering wheel shake

[needboost]

Hey guys,

I have experienced quite a bit of steering wheel shake... At first, I thought this was due to the alignment being off, or perhaps due to one of the wheel being mis-balanced. First, I realized, cruising along however, that I did not notice any pull - I believe a bad alignment would pull the car towards 1 way or the other.

Then I noticed something else. The steering wheel vibrates only when I accelerate at 65+ mph. If I am at 70 mph, but cruising without my foot on the gas, ie on a downhill on the highway - I notice no shaking of the steering wheel. If there was a tire or two that was not balanced, wouldn't I feel it even when cruising?

Any ideas anyone?

thanks

[boxman]

drive shaft inner c/v joint,this is common and is caused by the cup being worn

boxman

[needboost]

Thanks.

Hopefully this is something still covered under warranty....

thanks again.

[needboost]

Oh, 1 thing. The car only has about 45k miles on it... should that have worn out already? wth?

[NelsenW]

I had the same problem with my '99 9-3 at about 48k miles. As boxman said, it was the tripod bearing. Somehow, the grease escaped...the bearing wears ridges in the companion cup. Before you get into changing that out though, I would try to elminate any potential tire related possibilities (alignment, balance, pressure etc).

[boxman]

the other thing to think about is buckled rims depending on your wheels some styles are more vunerable than others

boxman

[needboost]

Thanks.

No rim problems, not that I could see. Keep in mind, my front 2 are pretty new, about 5 months old, and my rear two are about 1 year old. Come to think of it, I believe I had them balanced when they were rotated around 5 months ago.

Hope this is under warranty. If so, maybe they can take a quick look at it, and figure it out.

thanks again.

[sunnydude]

I am having the same vibrations on my 97 900. It isn't the wheels as just replaced them. Previous owner had three bent wheels. If it is the CV shaft, how much to fix? Can it be done by yourself? How to verify?

[SPATL]

Boxman hit my first guess as well. I had to replace an inner driver from the cup having a crazy wear pattern on it. The wierd thing was that it hadn't lost its grease but still wore the grooves in the cup.

It is a pretty involved job but not impossible.

The only other thing the check is sometimes is that regular tire balancing does not get rid of some vibration. The Hunter GSP9700 Wheel Balancing machine is a high speed balancer that has remedied many vibration problems that were undetected by other wheel balancers. Lucky for me the place I get my tires has such a machine.

You can go to their website and then search for a local shop that has such balancer. Might be worth you money to have that checked. I know a few 17" rim owners that spent lots of money having things replaced when it eneded up being solved by the Hunter GPS9700.


Hunter GSP9700

[needboost]

True, but we got our saab with extended warranty - so I'm going to first see if Saab wants to fix the problem for me .

I hope its not dangerous as it will prob take me a couple of weeks before I can get out of work to take the car to the dealer.