Serious vibration at wheel

M

murphybarnes

Member
Hi all. So I'm driving to work this morning on the dual carriageway. Average speed cameras so pooling at 50mph. Passed that section and gave it a brisk acceleration from about 20mph up to 60 or so and the steering wheel starts to really start shaking. I mean i thought the wheels were coming off.
Even when I slowed right down to around 20-30 it was still vibrating. I pulled in when I could and switched off and checked all the wheels. Restarted and all vibration gone. Fine the rest of the way even when i tried to recreate the speed on the way home, nothing!
I understand the problems with alignment and balancing etc just odd it was so random.
It was trying to pull left so I thought maybe sticky caliper. Any thoughts?
 
Scary. U checked wheel bolts for appropriate tightness?
Maybe some of the wheel balancing weights have popped off?
 
Obviously check all bolts are tightened then after a run where the brakes have been used stop & feel each caliper to see if one is warmer than the other .
 
Sounds a lot like a sticking caliper so I'd follow Mr Wilks advise... However I'd also check the side walls on front tyres for a bulges, I had serious vibration issues and pulling to one side which was due to a failing tyre however anything balance related like tyres or wheels would be continual and not stop after a restart.

I also suffered a sticking caliper years ago and found that heavy breaking would briefly make the vibrations stop, if you experience vibrations again on a journey you could test to see if braking makes them disappear briefly?

Good luck with your diagnosis!
 
I replaced a caliper on my ///M recently as it was sticking a little, was not causing any odd vibration prior, but was pulling slightly on gentle braking and getting hot, quicker than the other side. You can jack the car up and try pushing the wheels around with your hand. If one is sticking it should be pretty obvious. Or as said the sticky one gets hot. But then if you have don't much braking then they all get pretty hot. From the vibration and pull you describe, most likely at the front, so I would start looking there.
 
Sticking caliper would be my guess too. Next time it happens, quickly pull over, look and carefully touch your calipers, you'll find the problem one will be quite hot.
 
Or drive it for a while and the wheel that has the sticking caliper will typically have loads more brake dust on it than the unaffected side.
 
Forgot to close this up as I'm on holiday and recently received an e mail from a member with a similar problem. The front left caliper was the problem. Pretty much totalled the disc too so both discs and pads and a single caliper changed for around £400 ish. I think the caliper was around £80. All good now. Cheers.
 
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