Steering shudder

Post by **froggy** » 25 May 2011, 21:39

Hi, While driving my Xantia 1997 td. today. Ihave found the steering wheel shuddred at about 70 mph . never done this before . Should I be looking at the front suspension ? cheers Terry

Post by **xantia_v6** » 25 May 2011, 21:43

Front wheel balance.

gadgetgricey · Post by **gadgetgricey** » 25 May 2011, 21:58

Or weirdly rear wheel balance.

Had a similar thing on mine between certain speeds, lets say 65 & 73, and it was that precise. Under 65 not a thing, over 73 not a thing. You could actually feel the vibration start, and then subside between these speeds.
I found the trick was to stay over 73

Got the front wheels balanced with no luck, so just put up with it.
Changed the rear tyres (+ Balance) about 6 months later, and now fine at all speeds.

Cheers

- Dave -

NB Only know the precise speed's as was looking at the Sat Nav when it happened on numerous occasions.

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 25 May 2011, 22:24

Funny this should crop up.
When I swapped Cassy over to alloys, I was missing 4 bolts so ordered them from Citroen, but got the wrong ones, they're slightly longer.
Fitted one to each wheel and there was loads of shudder starting from 50mph.
It was on our "meant to be honeymoon" so pulled into the first services on the M1 and swapped the front two bolts for two of the rears, so the rears were matched diagonally.
This improved things somewhat, the shuddering moved up to around 60mph which wasn't a problem as we were sticking to 56mph

When we arrived I put them all into one of the back wheels and the shuddering has practically gone.
What's left is most likely front wheel balancing as they're the two good tyres that were on the alloys when I got them, with about 4mm left so I'll get them balanced as soon as I can.
With michelin energys they used to shudder like anything when they got down below 2.5mm, a handy indicator that it was time to replace them.