2001 3.2 TL. I have a vibration noticeable at all speeds. At slow speed i can feel it oscillating in the steering especially when moving the steering back and forth. When reaching speeds around 55 MPH when shifting from 2nd to 3rd is most pronounced. Feels like riding on cobble stone road. Above 60, it becomes a real vibration with noise. Feels and sounds like riding on road with grooves cut across the road. The funny thing is at highway speed it is not a steady symptom. Sometimes it disappears and sometimes becomes very annoying.

The dealer keeps blaming this on tire balancing. Because of this I have bought new expensive tires and have had them balanced and rebalanced many times along with tire rotation as well. Both wheels and tires have been checked to be true.

Has anyone else had a problem like this? Could this be related to the transmission issue? Has anyone ever heard of any wheel bearing failures?

 

That is not normal take it back to the dealer asap....

I dont think its tranny problems. There may be something wrong with the tires or you might only need an alignment.

 

it's not your expensive tires, it's your wheels. i had the same problem before and found out one of the wheels was bent slightly.

 

What kind of tires do you have on the car?

 

I second this; I had a rear bent rim that made for a terrible ride. They should be able to tell you if your rim is bent when they have it on the balancer.

 

I'd say it's a bent rim also. I FINALLY found the reason for my vibrations. At first it was a bent rim but after 4 balancings the vibrations were still there, I took one last step and asked my tire guy to give me new tires, since then the problem went away. I know not all tires are perfect but sometimes it could be out of round. Keep in mind though that you can balance a square on a balancer. Just because it's balanced doesn't mean it's round.
Ask to watch the wheel spin and keep your eye on the inner part of the rim, see if there is a hop anywhere. Good Luck!!

 

have you tried movint the front tires to the rear and the rear to the front? i would try that to see if that cures the problem. then if it did i would move one front to rear and rear to front at a time to see if you can narrow it down to which tire is causing the problem

 

The tires are V rated Toyo Proxes TPT. I receently had a friend check the balancing himself. He looked at each wheel carefully while spinning on the machine and feels all the wheels look okay. Again, I switched the wheels from front to rear with no change. If nothing mechanical is responsible, then I'll have to invest in another new set of tires.