Vibration at 68 miles per hour

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aneesh84
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Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by aneesh84 »

Hi,
My xantia normally drives pretty smooth but as it comes near the 68 miles per hour, I start to feel vibrations throughout the car. As I drive faster, the vibrations disappear. The band I feel the vibrations is 65-71 miles per hour peaking at 68.

I already got all my wheels balanced. But I dont trust the tyre shop because the first time i got it balanced my steering was shaking badly at speed. It was only after I took it back to the shop and the balanced the front tyres again that now my steering is steady, but the body vibration is still there .

Do you think it is because of bad balance in my rear wheels? Can there be any other reason?
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by longgo »

Bad tire i bet.. Even balanced if the tire is s**t you can`t do so much about it.. Mate of mine have experience and until he exchange it new one the problem didn`t disappear. Take spare wheel or one of friend`s car that is same(if you can) and try replacing one by one all of your car with drive test in between. Then you will catch it if you cant feel it right now
aneesh84
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by aneesh84 »

I bought two new front tyres, and its only after that that I started noticing this problem. But it could be that i was not so sensitive before and usually didnt drive in that speed.

Is there any way to indicate whether it is the front or rear tyres?

Though I feel the vibration in the steering like the rest of the car, the steering does not oscillate (like it was doing before i got the front new tyres rebalanced). Does this indicate that the problem is with the rear tyres?
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

I agree with Longgo that it could be a bad tyre. I had something (slightly ) similar with a company car, in that, a few weeks after the front tyres were changed, the N/S one developed a sidewall bulge. I popped the spare on, went back to the tyre place, and they checked it for damage, in case I had kerbed it (I hadn't), and then fitted a new tyre. The new tyres weren't no-names, they were (IIRC) Dunlop, as my employer at that time didn't believe in cost cutting where safety was concerned.
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by aneesh84 »

Oh! my new tyres are also Dunlop BlueResponse! I bought them online from pneus-online.com
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

That doesn't mean that the tyres have failed. It could easily be an incorrectly balanced wheel, or (worst of all) a damaged wheel that doesn't run true as it is buckled (and that doesn't need to be much to cause a problem).
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by Mandrake »

If the vibration only occurred after the front two tyres were changed, I think it's pretty obvious that either the front wheels aren't balanced properly or the tyres have some sort of defect like being out of round. (Can happen if the tyres were squashed in storage for a long time - eventually they will stretch back into a proper circle but will then require balancing again)

As your car is a Series 2 I'm assuming it has centre-less alloy rims ? (No hole in the middle between the wheel bolts) If so, it's VERY hard to get these balanced properly. Chances are the tyre shop you have been to either don't have the right adaptors to balance these type of rims or the operator doesn't have the experience/skill to do it, or is working in a hurry and not doing a proper job. When I had new tyres fitted to my Xantia the tyre shop completely screwed up the wheel balance by 140 grams causing a severe shake and steering wheel vibration as you described when you first got your tyres. It took them THREE return visits to get it right.

You may have to go in search of another tyre shop or mechanic who CAN balance centre-less rims, when phoning around you will need to specifically query them as to whether they can balance centre-less rims, most cannot, and those that can may rush the job the first time and require a second or third attempt to get it right.

Other things to check are to make sure there is no slack in the steering rod joints - I had one worn outer steering rod joint on my car when I first got it and there was a quite noticeable vibration at 70mph even though the tyres were well balanced. It went away when the joint was replaced and the wheel alignment set. Any slack in this joint can magnify the effects of a small wheel imbalance making it seem a lot worse than it really is.

Another thing that can cause vibration at speed is a faulty drive shaft joint, although if the vibration was not there before the tyres were changed its unlikely to be the cause.
Simon

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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by taffy »

get them to check they are ballanced again as the weights can fall off
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

I once was following a small van with a buckled O/S/R wheel that was so bad the whole back end of the van was wagging like an excited puppy. I could see it was the wheel, as when he pulled away from the lights I could see the wheel 'wobbling' at low speed.
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by aneesh84 »

Mandrake, you are spot on, about the difficulty of balancing centre less tyres. I was refused by 2 tyre shops before I found one, and as I mentioned after the first time balancing the steering shimmy was too bad. Then after the second attempt he solved the problem. Now the steering seems stable, but there is an overall vibration.

My suspicion is still the rear wheels. I have tried to observe carefully and even made my wife sit in the rear seat to observe carefully. She also reported a greater vibration at the rear side.

Other than that the front Dunlop Blueresponse tyres have an amazing feel, much quiter, smoother and more comfortable.

I have a hunch that mandrake is right, the rears havnt been balanced properly. They are Sportiva Super Z.

Will report back soon. Trying to find another reliable tyre place in Lisbon.
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by Old-Guy »

A couple of times in the past I've had much the same problem with our (green) Xantia estate. It seems that this is a critical speed for out of balance wheels to set up a harmonic vibration in Xantia suspension. The green one has one slightly out-of-true (steel) wheel - relegated to the spare. New tyres can need rebalancing after a short while, particularly if the tyre was (badly) stored for a while before being fitted. After a few hundred miles use at the proper pressure, the tyre goes back into shape and out of balance! I fit and balance my own, and although I fortunately don't get too much practise, sometimes one tyre can be a right PITA to balance, another on the same occasion will be spot-on first time. A tip I was given, when fitting more than one tyre, is to take the wheels off in pairs, fit both tyres inflating them up to about 40 psi, then set the first tyre fitted to the correct pressure, balance it and refit the wheel, then and only then, repeat the re-pressuring/balancing/fitting for the other one of the pair. The idea is to give each tyre as long as possible to adopt its proper shape - encouraged by the extra pressure - before the wheel+tyre is balanced. It's a VERY good idea, before having new tyres fitted, to take the wheels off yourself and give the inside of the wheels a good clean - a couple of tarry stones or an uneven layer of mud won't 'arf spoil the balance!

I suspect that tyre-fitters at tyre-and-exhaust outlets aren't allowed the time to get the balance spot-on (< 3gm) with every tyre. If you can, try and visit when they're quiet, the fitters will be under less pressure when there aren't other customers waiting.

On a previous car (Montego estate), the factory-fitted Dunlops were rubbish - all 5 developed bulges under the tread and had to be scrapped well before they were worn down to the wear bars.
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by isisalar »

I recently had a puncture repair done (o.s.r.)at a place that can't balance centerless wheels, on previous occasions they marked the tyre and wheel and exactly re positioned the tyre which worked perfectly, this time they got it wrong by about 1" and the result was vibration. Just had to pay £12 to get it sorted after the m.o.t.
At some time in the dim and distant past I recall someone telling me that wheel balance vibration always occurs at exactly 66 mph. Out of curiosity I checked this out and sure enough the vibration started at exactly 66 mph on the sat nav, 72 mph indicated.
IIRC Fords used to suffer from out of balance propshafts, and this used to show up at 33mph and 66mph too.
Can anyone offer an explanation?
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aneesh84
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by aneesh84 »

Went to another shop today and guess what, all 4 tyres were badly (im)balanced. Too many weights and put towards the centre rather than the edges.

After getting all 4 rebalanced, it is much better! However there is still a slight increase in vibration at around 70 mph. I dont know if i am getting too sensitive now or a slight increase is acceptable?

Will take it back to him to check again. But i am happy with the improvement.
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by Mandrake »

isisalar wrote:At some time in the dim and distant past I recall someone telling me that wheel balance vibration always occurs at exactly 66 mph. Out of curiosity I checked this out and sure enough the vibration started at exactly 66 mph on the sat nav, 72 mph indicated.
IIRC Fords used to suffer from out of balance propshafts, and this used to show up at 33mph and 66mph too.
Can anyone offer an explanation?
Nothing mystical, the wheel imbalance excites the "wheel hop resonance" (look it up) of the unsprung part of the suspension. This is the resonance that occurs due to the springing rate of the tyre itself and the unsprung weight of the suspension which rides upon the tyre. (Wheel rim, hub, brakes, strut, part of the drive shaft and lower arm etc) Typically this occurs around 10-15 Hz.

You can sometimes see this resonance following another car and watching their wheel as it enters or exits a deep pothole or traverses an abrupt "step" in the road - the wheel rim will bounce up and down on the tyre rapidly at about 10-15Hz for a number of oscillations. You don't normally feel this oscillation much as the suspension filters it out, but it does affect grip and road holding, and it will rattle any loose joints like drop links.

Not to be confused with the main suspension resonance frequency that occurs due to the spring rate of the suspension and the mass of the car body. This typically occurs at around 0.7 Hz on a Hydropneumatic Citroen and 1.0 - 1.5Hz on a typical car. (These two vastly different resonances are decoupled from each other, although its the job of the shock absorber / damping valves to provide damping for both resonances!)

If the wheel rotation speed and diameter are such that the imbalanced weight of the wheel is thrown up and down at the wheel hop resonance frequency the resonance is strongly excited and everything vibrates. Faster or slower and it doesn't happen as the resonance is not excited.

The reason why its at a pretty similar (although not identical) speed/frequency on most cars is that it's independent of the springing rate of the suspension and mass of the car - the resonance frequency only depends on the spring rate of the tyre (how inflated/springy it is) and the unsprung weight of the suspension, which don't typically vary a lot between cars, especially now that nearly everyone is using McPherson struts of similar design. The road speed that it occurs at also depends on the rolling radius of the tyre but again there isn't a huge variation in tyre diameter between cars of the same size. So the problem tends to occur at the same speed +/- 10mph.
Last edited by Mandrake on 28 Feb 2014, 12:17, edited 1 time in total.
Simon

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aneesh84
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Re: Vibration at 68 miles per hour

Post by aneesh84 »

Very Informative. Can you please tell me what level of vibration is acceptable? it its a very mild increase at that speed (as it is now), is that normal or should i insist to eliminating every vibration.
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