Gomez

Here's the scoop - when I drive the car on highway at about 60-80 MPH, the steering wheel shakes. Not when braking like a warped rotor (I've had that problem, too), but just driving down the road. I know what you're thinking, and I bet you're wrong...

Here's what we've tried without fixing the problem:
- balancing all 4 tires, twice
- replacing both front wheels that were only slightly bent
- replaced both front tires, although they had plenty of tread
- alignment

All done by Acura except one front tire that was replaced at Discount Tire for free under warranty (Acura wanted to charge me).

I hate my car more than ever now, and resent Acura. I hate them, twice I took it in and they said "we couldn't find or experience the problem." It's really obvious - it feels like the front tires are out of balance but I know well that they are not. I feel more and more that I should have bought a Lexus. I'd trade my car in, but I hate to take the depreciation hit. It's a 2001 with 20,000 miles, and might be good for 22-24K trade in value.

HELP!!!!!!!!

Acura3200

My friend had the EXACT same problem with his 99 TL. The dealer found it to be that he has different sized tires (215/55/16's). They lowered the air pressure in his tires (Yokohama Avid V4's) and that solved the problem. Maybe try that or have the dealer try it.

Jason

Gomez

Hmm, I'll try lowering the pressure. That actually makes sense, b/c what I forgot to mention above was that the problem only happens when the car warms up on the freeway for a while. I even wondered if the tires were getting too hot. That would increase air pressure even more...

My tires are OEM, though - 205-60-16 Michelins that came on the car. the 2 I replaced were the exact same tires.

I'm going to bleed some air right now - I'll let y'all know.

drbeatty

I don't what else to tell you that you haven't already tried. Maybe try swapping the front wheels with the rear wheels and see if the problem duplicates itself. If it does, it is possible that there is perhaps a CV joint problem or transaxle misalignment - although it may not be the case with the TL. Have the dealers tried to isolate the problem by swapping wheels?

Sniper_mjh

Demand that the service manager get in the damn car with you, and go drive it and then let him feel it... I bet they are just jumping in, going arround the block, and saying nothing is wrong

TLTypeS

is it at that speed or when your accelerating??? i had that feeling and the service manager said it was from accelrating and was the rims. i am running low profile tires on 19's. but thats all we could think it could be since i had my cv boots, joints and even tranny replaced. i will put my stocks on one day and see if its any different.

Gomez

Nope, not when accelerating but just driving down the road. I let some air out last night and it seemed to be better but not perfect. It was 31 lbs, so now it's like 29 or so. It's really hot here in Texas and a combination of being over 100 degrees on the highways and driving at freeway speeds will raise the tire pressure a lot.

What's really irritating is that the problem is intermittent. It didn't happen last night after I dropped the tire pressure, nor did it happen on my way to work this morning. We'll see what happens on the way home when it's really hot outside.

Man, I've never had a problem like this before.

Another theory is that when the car heats up, the rotors and pads also get hot exacerbating the warped rotor issue. Possibly they warp enough to jiggle the front wheels even when not braking. I will try to have the dealer resurface them AGAIN, but I really hate to take more metal off 'cause rotors only have so much metal.

v6pwr

wow, this also just happened to me within the last week. i noticed the vibration/shaking only when the car reaches a certain speed(around 55-65mph, but the steering wheel stops shaking and becomes smooth when i get to about 70 and up). i have a '98 accord coupe btw, with 18" blitz z1's. the shaking is mild and subtle...so i'm thinking it can't be a bent rim..most likely an incorrectly balanced tire..b/c i only began noticing last week when i rotated the front wheels with back wheels. i also tried the air pressure thing a few days ago, but it didn't help. i guess i'll go get the tires balanced, but i'll let all the air out and pump it up again...so the tire might "pop" back into the right place if it's off. i found that if you do alot of hard cornering, the tires will shift and distort it's placement on the wheels..causing shakes...

Gomez

I just came back from the dealer, and we have a suspected culprit causing the wobbling: front wheel bearings sound to be bad on at least one side.

They wanted me to pay $260 or so for one side only. I begged and pleaded to have it done under warranty, and they finally caved. The asst. service manager went on a test drive with me and the problem luckily was witnessed by him, unlike last time when they said, "we drove it and couldn't feel anything wrong." He noted the wheel sound that I hadn't noticed before and gave me the scoop. Apparently, the bearings act up worse when heated up, hence the intermittent nature of the problem.

When he said $260 for one side, I explained that I'd already replaced 2 tires, done 2 4-wheel balancings, replaced 2 wheels and had an alignment job done to try to correct the problem with no luck. Since I paid about $600(!) so far for all the above except one tire that NTB replaced for free under warranty, "what do you say you cut a brother a deal?" He said OK, but give them a good review if it fixes it when the survey comes in. We'll see...

ratpack

I read your posts.

Have you heard of wheel balancing while the tire and wheel assembly are under a 700 pound load?

I saw this on Motorweek (Speedvision TV). They balance your tire while loading the tire. The computer looks at the spinning tire and tells the tech to mark the tire and wheel at certain areas. Then the tech remounts the tire with the markings aligned.

I would ask your tech to try this. I dont remember the machines name that did this. I think it was a Watson 8700 or something. This technique of balancing was said to be superior to conventional methods.

jl

MB45

Err.. I would be really pissed as well! I cant believe that your Acura dealer would make you pay for the faulty bearings.. are they not covered in the warranty? Id send a letter to Acura in care their TLC dept. At least maybe you might be able some sort of compensation..

VTEC Animal

Yeah, here's something to remember with those Michelins... Make sure that you inflate to Acura's specs (see inside the drivers door sil), and make sure that the tires are cold when you do that (the car's been parked for a while, feel the tires with your hand). That'll make a huge difference. You want to make sure that your pressure is correct. Two low and you'll get super crappy gas mileage, too high and you'll get all kinds of other weird things.... Not to mention that you'll get lower life when they're not inflated properly.

Gomez

Thx for the advice everyone. Believe me, it's all been tried with the exception of the wheel balancing under load. The bearings were (grudgingly) covered under warranty, but did not fix the problem.

What a huge pain in the butt!

SLVR TL

I'm sorry to hear you've been having problems with your Acura. I haven't had anything but good news with my car... so it's a bit hard to believe that an Acura automobile is giving you this much suffering. But I do understand that there are exceptions to anything.

Why don't you ask them to issue you a "lemmon" certificate and have them replace your ride with a brand new one.

SL1200MK4

My car pulls to the right even thought I tried alignment and all that...

That really sucks......

pianoman41

Day one off the lot in my brand new '97 Maxima SE I had a shaking at speeds over 45 mph. I went through the whole elimination process like you did - swapping rims, swapping tires, alignments, balancing, etc. I even had the dealer swap all four rims and tires with the four on the manager's demo. Still wasn't right. I suffered like that for the first 40,000 miles. Then it was time to get replacement tires. Replaced the $hitty Goodyear Eagle RS-As for some Dunlop SP Sport 5000 Z-series and the problem went away! However, I think the real reason wasn't so much the tires themselves as the fact that I had them balanced *on the car.* Find a place that can do that and give it a try. Cost me like $10 a wheel but it was worth it.

Shoofin

Did they change the rotors and pads? That might help.....The caliper may be sticky and causing the pad to rub against the rotor even when you're not on the brakes...have them check that too...
Ed

daverman

My first car was a 1990 Geo Prizm which shimmied badly around its maximum speed (75 MPH). Turns out I had a defect in one of my tires.

Of course, the fact that the Geo Prizm takes about 10 minutes to reach 75 MPH means that it wasn't a big problem for me