This is the third car I have noticed this on!

Basically when going quick (im talking usually around the !10 mark), the steering wheel judders quite violently and caused the brakes to overheat and fade making the car judder more under heavy braking :( I am too scared to lower/uprate the brakes now because I know it will just get worse.

On my Mondeo I had it too, it was a problem with one of the alloys, I tried on several occassions to have it fixed but to no avail, my brother also put some aftermarket PA Alloys on his Renault Sport 172 Clio and he too even to this day noticed the !10 jiggle.

My brother and me on my ex car have gone through almost everything trying to get it fixed but all to no avail.

On my mondeo I thought it was the balancing, but I was assured by Ford on 3 occassions this was correct, I thought it could be the tyres that may have worn to the old alloy wheel shape, but then putting on a new set of boots still didnt fix it, I had it laser aligned and nothing seemed to work.

Now that I have the Octavia vRS alloys on mine it's back again, what is it that causes this annoying jiggle and causes the brakes the overheat/fade and make the shuddering through the steering wheel almost violent? Is it something as simple that when the cars are made they are setup to tow a certain way or have something (I dont know what) specific to the OEM alloys, so that when you put aftermarket ones on it affects this balance? even if it's only small it's having a huge effect.

And yes my car was fine, no jiggles up to !30 before putting the alloys on.

Any suggestions, and does anyone experience the judder man?

I assume the wheels were properly balanced when the 205/40s were put on?

I sometimes get a small jiggling from mine, but this is usually on full fifth gear throttle, under max torque, and at v.fast speeds too (less tha 70mph obviously...)

The only other possible issue is your 205/40s are feeding through the effects of minor road imperfections at speed, wheras the 205/45s would have soaked up a little more of that feedback from the road? Not sure what else to say. If it was fine with 16s, it should be logically OK with properly fitted 17s too. :confused:

Sorry forgot to mention mine are the Estate alloys hence 16" using the standard 205/45 tyres I got with the car, and it jiggles on perfect tarmac too.

I would get the balancing checked.

Correct balancing should be able to iron out machining imperfections in the wheels.

I'll go and see if they can do it, but I have a feeling after having been numerous times before about my previous car that it wont make much difference, what about laser aligning? I hit a rabbit when the car had 4k miles on and it nocked out the front fog light (managed to just click it back in luckily), could this of affected the alignment?

I like 4 wheel laser alignment - As long as it's done properly.

Stand behind them and look at the screen - ensure they get them bang on.

And if it still jiggles?

laser alignment isn't about balancing is it? Its more about tracking I thought? :confused:

I say get the wheels off and span up on a balancing machine (again if necessary) Also, avoid the place you had previous problems with - sounds like a bunch of monkeys. My apologies if they're actually a good garage - Its just a feeling I get from your first post.

If that doesn't cure it you'll need to start looking around your suspension bushes.

Before you go looking at bushes - i had a set did this.

They balanced and rebalanced to no avail.

It was one wheel - the centre hub mount had been machined wrongly - hence causing the wobble. More pronounced as i got faster.

Worth a check.

If that doesn't cure it you'll need to start looking around your suspension bushes.

Hmmm. As my front bushes were noticed to be almost totally shot, that could explain my steering wheel slight higgle when accelerating at speed.

Before you go looking at bushes - i had a set did this.

They balanced and rebalanced to no avail.

It was one wheel - the centre hub mount had been machined wrongly - hence causing the wobble. More pronounced as i got faster.

Worth a check.

Thanks , however it was fine before I put these set of alloys on, which means it couldnt be the hub as they are what the wheels sit on :(

Put the fronts onto the rear and see if that helps.

I am sure by the brakedust build up from before I owned the alloys (since they are 2nd hand) that the NS back left and the OS front right are the origonal alloys which were on the front, as the other two alloys were in a much better condition and didnt need half the cleaning.

However surely if they have been balanced correctly, all 4 wheels should weigh the same meaning there is no difference? changing them round so that the above two were on the front would also mean I had one good tyre and one average tyre on the front and back.

I think the next course of action over the weekend will be to go back to the same place, explain my problem and see if I can get them to fix it FOC, if not luck then i'll go elsewhere to have it properly laser aligned.

Yes but you now suspect a misaligned or mal-machined hub therefore moving the juddering front wheels to the back may narrow down your problem.

There are a whole host of things you can try or do, moving the fronts is the cheapest, while you've got them off give your track rod ends and ARB bushes the once over then if it still persists get them all balanced somewhere else.

Once you've done all that go for your 4 wheel alignment and see if that turns anything up.

I cant see how it could be a hub problem though mate, because as I said the car was fine prior to fitting these alloys, and the wheels have never been off before, surely if it was a mal-machined hub it would have aired it's ugly head already?

I cant see how it could be a hub problem though mate, because as I said the car was fine prior to fitting these alloys, and the wheels have never been off before, surely if it was a mal-machined hub it would have aired it's ugly head already?

It could be the hub of the wheel which has been machined incorrectly, so it doesn't sit properly...I don't think this would necessarily be picked up when balancing the wheel either...

The other possiblity is that you're testing on the same bit of road which has some kind of natural resonance at around 110.

Rob.

Did you check to see whether the alloys are warped? This is not as uncommon as you would think, my 'al mate has just had 2 alloys on his 02 TT replaced under warranty. He experienced the same problems as you are, and under heavy braking the car was quite uncontrollable. Worth a check.

I was meaning the wheel hub.

May sound silly but are the bolts correctly tightend?

A loooong time ago I owned a Citroen AX GT with the 4 spoke lacquer on bare alloy wheels. As usual the lacquer broke and the metal got tarnished very quickly and looked awful. Most people just get the whole wheel refurbished by shotblasting and silver paint. I didn't like the look of this so I sent them off for proper refurbishment, this involved shot blasting, painting in two shades of grey in the outer grooves and then the entire outer face of the wheel was machined back to parent alloy and then lacquered. The result was fantastic, they looked like new. The only problem was that even with the wheels balanced (I got this done regularly at various different garages) the steering juddered. I couldn't fix it. The final solution was to swap fronts to rear.

A colleague who drives rally cars has just walked in, he has found this problem on Sparco wheels in the past.

Anyway, go on, name and shame - What make are the wheels?

Thanks , however it was fine before I put these set of alloys on, which means it couldnt be the hub as they are what the wheels sit on :(

I meant the hole in the alloy, which fits around the hub.

Sorry if i wasn't clear.

I've just swapped my standard wheels from front to back on my Fabia vRS and now I've got the same problem. Before the swap all was well right up to 130 (kmh obviously ), but now at the 90 mark I get a wobble on the steering if I use a lot of throttle. I was going to get the balancing checked, but there was no problem when the wheels were the other way around.

From my experience of BMW's, it will be worth looking at the balancing machine to make sure the tyre and wheel combo is running true with no sidewards movement or flat spots, even though I know I have not kerbed a wheel.

Mine were Compomotive MO's at the time.

never had any problems with wheels myself, be it original or aftermarket, needed re-balencing from time to time but thats it. you must be unlucky with wheels