Good day to all.

Yes another vibration thread. However I have already spent numerous hours searching for a remedy to my vibration issue. But the problem I'm running into is that there are too many root causes of vibration and too many symptoms throughout the posts I've read and I cannot determine which cause(s) are most likely to apply to my car.

So if I list the specifics below can anyone comment on what they think are the most likely causes in order of most likely to least likely for my car?

First the vehicle. 04 TL 6MT, original owner (my wife drive it for the first 75K miles), 80K miles, no mods of any kind

Next what I have recently done to the car whether or not targeted to the vibration. New tires, alignment (twice) and new rear brake pads and rotors.

Lastly the symptoms.
1. Vibration is a little inconsistent
2. Vibration seems to occur in the 40 - 65 mph range.
3. Vibration occurs regardless of the gear I'm. I can even shift into neutral on the highway and the vibration continues.
4. Vibration felt in the steering wheel and at times the seats as well.
5. As far as my eyes can see, while the wheels are a little scuffed there is no visible damage to them
6. I believe the vibration has been around for a long long time, maybe even from the initial delivery.

 

These are some possibilities...wheel balance, alignment and worse case scenario, the tranny.

 

I had the same issue, i swapped out the front wheel bearings and the lower speed vibration went away, but the 45 - 60 stayed... stock rims by the way.... Well in between getting my new rims i painted the stock ones, which might have cause a balance issue and pulled to the right slightly... Well i put my new rims on and all the issues went away, the vibration and the pulling* after 3 alignments with the old rims*...

So im thinking i had a bent rim going on, but i couldnt tell from the look of them...

 

i would get the wheels rebalanced. its possible that they didnt balance them properly or the weights just feel off. things happen.

keep an eye on your tire pressure to see if there is a leak, if you, your rim is cracked or bent

 

first target: wheels and tires like every one else said. what type of tires did you get?? UHP tires can be tempermental at times and standard dynamic balancing may not be sensitive enough. road force balancing will check balance, lateral pull, and if the wheel is bent.

if you are for sure the wheels/tires are balanced...then you go to bigger pricier items. could be axles, could be motor mounts, wheel bearings will typically make noise, but a possibility.

do you get vibration with accelerations (usually low speed)??

 

with a blown mount there would be vibrations all the time, so thats pretty much ruled out

 

yeah i would have ruled that out too, since OP stated he still gets vibrations even on freeway in neutral, but...thought i would leave that in there as an item to check.

 

Thanks for the dialogue. The tires I purchased are Bridgestone Potenza RE 960AS Pole Position. I can't say that accelleration from any speed exagerates the issue. When it is vibration (as descrived in the OP) accel, decel, or tossing the tranny into neutral seem indifferent to each other.

I will also add (didn't think this was very relevant) but the car is still on the original plugs. The idle is not quite what I expect from a Honda motor. Very slight roughness but not silky smooth. \

When I purchased my last set of tires at a Forestone I expliained the vibration. The store manager serached for a few days for an alternate alignment spec then suggested by Acura. He had the camber set right at one end of the spec and that seemed to make a little positive difference.

I have to rule out the tranny because of the shifting into neutral comment I previously made.

I saw a lot of discussion about front axles in other posts. Do you people think this is not likely my problem given my symptoms?

 

Bent wheel/s or wheel balance....rule these out first.

Try a place that does Hunter Road Force Balance.

 

camber is not adjustable on our cars, only toe, so not sure what the firestone guy did to your alignment.

item 4 in the OP, could indicate it is the axles (bad inner CV joint).

i had vibration thru the steering wheel on accelerations which could be felt thru the seat at times. mine were replaced (Lt. bad inner CV and Rt. bad outer CV-click on turns), no more vibrations.

plugs don't need to be changed until timing belt service at 105K.

tire/wheel balance is good, yes?? vibrations are a PITA to diagnose, so many of us can only tell you what we've experienced. my vote moves onto the axles if wheels/tires/alignment ok.

 

^^worth a try. i did this too before the axles were replaced. the dealer will for sure have a hunter road force balance machine. this machine does everything except slice bread practically, for wheels and tires.

 

Thanks again. I think what my path forward is.

1. Drive the car more with the XM radop off and listen very closely for unnatural noises while turning and accelerating. This may give me a better clue.

2. Road force balance the tires

3. Try to find a way to swap tires / wheels with someone to rule out bent rim.

4. Ultimately the axles CV joints.

 

OK, I need to confess. I did not take the car to the steeler very often for the 15K, 30K, 45K etc. I just had the oil and other fluids changed per normal driving recommendation.

Is there some lube required on the front end that may be way past due?

 

numbers 2 and 3 can be taken care of together. if you get RFB, it will detect tire and wheel defects. if its CV's, just replace the whole axle. repacking the CV jts isn't worth the labor time. its more efficient just to get new axles. lots of options and opinions on those. OEM vs. aftermarket. just don't get chinese made junk if you go aftermarket. let us know how it goes. good luck!

 

there are no mileage based maintenance items for our cars except 105K (TB pkg). only the MID (includes TB). the time based items are brake fluid flush.

so, short answer, no.

 

ok great, road force balance it is then axle if it comes to that, other that original equpiment how can I determine which after market brands are OK?

 

aftermarket axles will run $70-100, OEM ~200 (maybe less), OEM at the dealer 230-240 (MSRP).

if you do a search...plenty of options: napa, monroe ?, raxles, some other no name stuff at autozone or advanced. some have lifetime warranties (which i'm sure you will use), others limited warranties. research.

i went OEM b/c it was covered by my mechanical breakdown insurance (thru my car ins)...plus i only let my dealer guys handle my car (i'm anal and for me to trust anybody with the car...is difficult). and i had <50K miles on my car at the time, they were going bad well before that like 42K or so.

stick with known names, find out if its remanufactured or not...read on the forums here...do advanced search on axles or CV joints and narrow to 3G forum. and read. a lot. hopefully its only a bent rim or a bad tire then you don't have to worry about the axle stuff. my gut tells me its an axle issue for ya, hope i'm wrong.

 

Im having a similar issue except for only vibrates when I accelerate. I have replaced passenger axel, new tires, allingment, and no fix dealer is no help since thanks to them im in for $1600 so far with no fix I will try the driver axel next hopefully that will fix it. Does anyone know if any driver side axle will fit? I have an 04 TL 6speed sport with brembo kit.. Thanks guys

 

I bought a used 2005 TL with 87K miles, car vibrated after half tank gas and I had new tires put on it driving off the lot. ended up being 2 bent rims. So that issue was taken care of .
Then at any gas level the car vibrated between 55-70, constant vibration in the steering wheel and everytime. I finally got noticed by the GM of the dealership when I gave a very bad customer service rating and a little bad mouth of the technicians. The service manager tried very hard to say it was the characteristic of the car and he drove 2 other TL's with the same issue that he drove.
I told him then those cars have an issue and need to be looked at.
finally after 2 new sets of tires the issue has been taken care of.
I do not know the exact tire I had on before but it was the stock tire for the 05 TL they were using.
They replaced the tires with Falken 235/45ZR17 ZE-502 ZIEX
the car rides smooth now.
I still do not know how they can put a car on the lot with 2 bent rims and the tires were bald and expect someone to buy it like that.
Saying vibration is the characteristic of the vehicle is so LAME and if you can do not put up with it. Took me the complete 30 days to get this issue taken care of so was within the dealers warranty period of the car thank goodness.
So be cautious when buying a used car and thoroughly test drive.
Hope this helps someone.

 

^^^ I agree that it is the tires. I had this slight vibration as well, at first I cancelled out the 1500-2000rpm drone which they have tsb for but for some reason it's for 2004 models I believe. I had a Gunther road force balance and was fine but on certain cold/hot days it vibrates at times, so annoying. Or a balance weight could have fell off.

 

Sorry for the delay in providing an update. So I purchased new after-market wheels and had the road force balanced at a local Honda dealer. Their labor rate was less than the local Acura stealer.

Still have the issue although it seems a little better. I'm thinking that at least part of my issue may be tire flat spotting.

But back to the axles, in my mind it does not feel right to replace axles without any symptoms other than an intermittent vibration.

Comments?

 

i have a similar problem but im leaning towards the wheel bearings being due for a replacement

 

So I'm torn between axles and wheel bearings. How can I decide the next item to try?

 

shakin-when you say intermittent...what are you doing at that time? during accelerations say from 15-30mph?

wheel bearings will tend to give off an annoying hum at any speed with or without accelerating.

if vibrating in any condition (accel, decel, neutral)...i'd check motor mounts too.