Vibration Issues

[2k5reverb]

Hey guys i have a 2005 civic Reverb and i am having troubles with a vibration in the steering wheel at highway speeds. The problem started after i got my new 17" rims. I have had the tire balanced 5 times and tried two sets of diffrent tires tires. I have had the front end looked at and everything is tight. Even when i put on my original honda rims and tires on i still have a minor vibration which i never had before. I have tried spinning the tires with the car on jack stands and everything looks good. I am getting the car put on my neighbours dyno next week to see if we car hear or see anything with their being weight on the front tires. Has anyone had this problem before?

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[gearbox]

usually happens with aftermarket rims that are not hub balanced properly. you can try hub centering rings, they work for some people. didnt work for me. i have some cheap konigs and they vibrate alot, even after many balances at different shops. usually starts around 65mph and gets worse when faster. i dont drive much on the freeway so im not too worried for now, but with the oem rims there was no vibes at all at any speed. usually aftermarket rims are universal and not properly matched to the car. alot of times they are not even perfectly round, and that means you can never balance them. i plan to go back to an oem rim sometime later. thats really the only way to get a smooth ride. slight vibrations can be caused by worn tires too, but usually the rim is to blame.

[2k5reverb]

Well i have hub centric rings. Even now if i put my oe rims on the car i still have a minor vibration which i never had before. But it doesnt shake as bad with the oe rims as with the 17"s. The speed it shakes at is about 105km/h but if i speed up to say 120km/h the shake will go away. When i am saying i have a shake the steering wheel will move 1/4 inch or more from side to side if i let go of the wheel. I think that is a pretty large vibration.

[gearbox]

well if its a mechanical problem, it could be worn compliance (front LCA) bushings or bad ball joints. even a bad engine mount.

[GreenMachineDX]

I am also having this same problem, but i am still on my oe wheels tho.. I think my ball joint is worn out..

[gearbox]

could also be the shop doesnt know how to balance. static balancing should be obsolete but some shops still do it. you want at least a dynamic balance with the wheels spinning in the machine, and they should use gram weights to get more accuracy. a good dynamic balance should completely eliminate vibration. road force is the last step when nothing else seems to work. uses a more advanced machine and only some shops have it. i still havent tried this but im thinking about doing it.

[2k5reverb]

Well i dont think it is anything worn out in the front end because i had it checked and its tight. The strange thing is i will be driving down the road at 105kmh and i will get the vibration and 10 seconds later it will dissapear without changing speed and then it will come back. I am starting to think it could be a bent cv axle or someting even know i havent hit any portholes or curves. Maybe they bent something when they put the wheels on.

[gearbox]

yup thats exactly what my aftermarket rims do. perfect no vibe for 10 secs, then it starts shaking like crazy. i think the rims are just not perfectly round like they should be. its cheap design made overseas with no quality control like oem. and it started right when i had the aftermarket rims put on so i know nothings wrong with the car itself.

[2k5reverb]

I was having a hoping problem with one of my wheels when i got them but than has been replaced. They checked all the rims to make sure they weren't hoping on the tire balancer. And gearbox when you put your oe wheels back on the car do you have a vibration? Because when i put my honda rims on last week i had a vibration that wasnt there before i ever put the new rims on.

[gearbox]

im not sure why that would happen. but no, i havent switched back to stock rims altho im on the lookout for oem hybrid rims now. did you use the same tires for both aftermarket and oem rims? cause sometimes when they put the tires back, the wear gets switched around and you feel it more. try moving the front tires to the rear, and the rear tires to the front. if that lessens or worsens the vibration, you know its the tires causing it and not the rims or car. i had an issue like this with my last set of tires on oem rims. i put the "bad" tires in the rear and couldnt feel a thing.

[2k5reverb]

So i pulled my rims off the car today and found that the tire shop had some how lost my RF and RR hubcentric rings. So i put the 2 hubcentric that were on the car to the front wheels and now have no steering wheel shake. Just need to pick up the rings they lost and it will be perfectly smooth. I bet the tire shop will be pissed becuase they balanced the tires 4 or 5 times and had to warranty the first set of tires. My original wheels had a weight fall off and this was causing a vibration there. Having the shake in both sets of rims had me confused but i am glad it was something so simple to fix.

[gearbox]

are you sure the rings did not get stuck to the rim? that happened to my rears once and i thought the shop lost them but they were stuck on the rim lol. but i think yours may have been gone cause it fixed the vibration. wheel weights falling off is also common, make sure they properly apply them using alcohol to clean the rim first and then pressing them on. most are held with sticky tape.

[2k5reverb]

Yeah i am sure they never got stuck on the rims. I checked all four tires and both my right side tires were missing them. The more i think about it i think one ring is probably inside the bad rim that they had already replaced. Man you would think they would get someone that is not an idiot to work on a $2000 set of rims and tires.

[gearbox]

they dont care. for all they know, rims are only $50. my rims have tons of deep scratches from techs using a screwdriver to pry off old weights, and their machine messing up the outer lip. in fact all the damage to my rims (there is alot) has been caused by balance/alignment shops.