[BK2BLKGT]

Ok to start, i have had a vibration in my steering wheel when hitting around 60 on the interstate before i lowered my car. This vibration with no hands on the steering wheel made it vibrate right and left about a 1/4 of on inch and with hands on it would make your forearm jiggle..I took the car to Ford to have it looked at and the tech told me after driving it that nothing was wrong and its NORMAL. I sh*t bricks when he told me this and basically had them do a wheel balance only to find nothing wrong with my tires.

So after that, i took it home and its still there. Seems to rattle more and more the faster i go (under 80). Since i just lowered my car i decided today to go get an alignment done at Pro Alignment since the tech at ford wasnt in who specialized in mustang alignments.

80 bucks later they told me my camber is on the spot and my toe wasnt. They said the tires were bowed outward of eachother causing them to fight against one another and that equals increased tire wear. When i heard this i was like :gringreen:gringreen theres the problem, sure enough..it wasnt. My vibration in the steering wheel is still there :headscratch: and now i have no idea whats wrong and thinking ford isnt going to do anything but tell me its normal..

Am i wrong to think this isnt normal? I have never noticed any steering wheel vibration in any of my cars till this one and since i had a wheel balance done, does that get rid of the idea of a possible bad rim or tire?

Anyone else had this issue before? or have any ideas what else it could be? Should i try rotating my tires? Should the steering wheel be smooth around 60-80? Btw this is while in 4th 5th or 6th.

Im taking it back to Ford on sat for them to look at it but since its lowered now i can only expect more money out the wallet for the labor..i only have about 7900 miles in.

 

[signal7]

I'm no mechanic so maybe someone else can chime in, but I have absolutely no vibration in my steering. When did the vibration start, I know you said before you lowered the car but has it done this since new? Has the vibration gradually gotten worse over time? Was it fine one day and horrible the next? Is the vibration the same on all the roads you drive? If you could swap a wheel/tire with something similar you might be able to eliminate the vibration and identify a particular wheel/tire on your car that is problematic.

 

[BK2BLKGT]

I'm no mechanic so maybe someone else can chime in, but I have absolutely no vibration in my steering. When did the vibration start, I know you said before you lowered the car but has it done this since new? Has the vibration gradually gotten worse over time? Was it fine one day and horrible the next? Is the vibration the same on all the roads you drive? If you could swap a wheel/tire with something similar you might be able to eliminate the vibration and identify a particular wheel/tire on your car that is problematic.

I had my first oil change or the works done in feb if i remember correctly. Dont remember the exact day i noticed it or though it might be a problem lol. It hasnt done this since i bought the car and its on any road. Its gets worse the faster i go really, im suspecting a bad tire or rim and im about to go bring the back tires up front and go from there. Ill post what i find when done. thanks for the reply.

 

[CamaroEater]

Ok to start, i have had a vibration in my steering wheel when hitting around 60 on the interstate before i lowered my car. This vibration with no hands on the steering wheel made it vibrate right and left about a 1/4 of on inch and with hands on it would make your forearm jiggle..I took the car to Ford to have it looked at and the tech told me after driving it that nothing was wrong and its NORMAL. I sh*t bricks when he told me this and basically had them do a wheel balance only to find nothing wrong with my tires.

So after that, i took it home and its still there. Seems to rattle more and more the faster i go (under 80). Since i just lowered my car i decided today to go get an alignment done at Pro Alignment since the tech at ford wasnt in who specialized in mustang alignments.

80 bucks later they told me my camber is on the spot and my toe wasnt. They said the tires were bowed outward of eachother causing them to fight against one another and that equals increased tire wear. When i heard this i was like :gringreen:gringreen theres the problem, sure enough..it wasnt. My vibration in the steering wheel is still there :headscratch: and now i have no idea whats wrong and thinking ford isnt going to do anything but tell me its normal..

Am i wrong to think this isnt normal? I have never noticed any steering wheel vibration in any of my cars till this one and since i had a wheel balance done, does that get rid of the idea of a possible bad rim or tire?

Anyone else had this issue before? or have any ideas what else it could be? Should i try rotating my tires? Should the steering wheel be smooth around 60-80? Btw this is while in 4th 5th or 6th.

Im taking it back to Ford on sat for them to look at it but since its lowered now i can only expect more money out the wallet for the labor..i only have about 7900 miles in.

Two things it is... Quit possibly could be your pinion angle, since your lower now.( but doubt it)
But I had the same problem and now my wheel is silky smooth and my Fix was a Road Force Balance.
I had my wheels balance a total of 4 times to get them right, the first couple were on a normal balancer and the 3rd time on a road force, all were done by morons. the 4th time took it to a place that was suggested by many and bam balance was done right, problem solved...
You just have to find someone that knows what there doing... But I would say balance is your problem if I had to guess..GL

 

[adspru]

+1 CamaroEater. The wobble in the wheel is most likely caused by one of the front rims/tires. I would swap front to back to see if vibration/wobble changes. It's a good thing this car has EPAS or you would be feeling it worse. I had a vibration in my previous 08 GT and it was caused by a bad tire. They would balance out just fine, they would road force just fine. But then we figured out the vibration only occurs once the tires have warmed up. So the Tech and I took it out and beat the crap out of the car for 10 minutes, and then pulled it directly into the shop for a road force and sure enough, bad tire.

If you can completely rule out rims and tires, there is only a couple other items that could cause a vibration. On the front that would be easily felt in the steering wheel would be the rotors, this would a very rare issue. All of the other rotating pieces are in the rear and they would be a lot less likely to transfer directly to the steering wheel.

 

[BK2BLKGT]

Just finished rotating the tires, took it for a test drive and still got the same vibration. Tried the interstate and some back roads. yah i had ford do the balance so maybe this time ill look for a road force and see what happens..

talked to a service manager at ford and he said i could have a bad shock but i doubt it..

 

[BK2BLKGT]

Two things it is... Quit possibly could be your pinion angle, since your lower now.( but doubt it)
But I had the same problem and now my wheel is silky smooth and my Fix was a Road Force Balance.
I had my wheels balance a total of 4 times to get them right, the first couple were on a normal balancer and the 3rd time on a road force, all were done by morons. the 4th time took it to a place that was suggested by many and bam balance was done right, problem solved...
You just have to find someone that knows what there doing... But I would say balance is your problem if I had to guess..GL

CamaroEater,

Where did you take yours to for the final balance?

 

[Grimace427]

I will second the roadforce balance suggestion. I am a tech and we use it for this very reason. Sometimes we have to spin the tire on the rim 90-180 degrees before they are smooth. It is very labor intensive and expect a higher cost over normal balancing.

Also, shocks/struts will not cause a vibration when driving down a smooth road, only after hitting a bump.

 

[BK2BLKGT]

I will second the roadforce balance suggestion. I am a tech and we use it for this very reason. Sometimes we have to spin the tire on the rim 90-180 degrees before they are smooth. It is very labor intensive and expect a higher cost over normal balancing.

Also, shocks/struts will not cause a vibration when driving down a smooth road, only after hitting a bump.

thanks, im looking to maybe go to tread quarters tomorrow for this. looking like about 95 bucks..

Can wheel locks cause any issues with balance even though they are on all four wheels? i had a thought about replacing the locks with the original nuts but prolly a waste of time.

 

[CamaroEater]

CamaroEater,

Where did you take yours to for the final balance?

I took it to a shop about twenty mins from me called Silver City, not sure how this helps you cause your in Virginia but that's where I went and they take pride in there work. Call around in your area,sure there is a ton a places in VA that have road force machines...Also when they complete your balance make sure they torque your lug nuts 100 ft. Pounds on the ground using star pattern, then re torque 50-100 miles later,,,,,and remember star pattern , it makes a diff.

 

[Grimace427]

thanks, im looking to maybe go to tread quarters tomorrow for this. looking like about 95 bucks..

Can wheel locks cause any issues with balance even though they are on all four wheels? i had a thought about replacing the locks with the original nuts but prolly a waste of time.

I have wheel locks on my car with no vibration issues even over 115mph on the strip. Things that cause roadforce imbalance are potholes and flatspots from sitting for a few days or weeks.

 

[BK2BLKGT]

Yeah i haven't been hitting pot holes but my car has sat in the garage for weeks at a time while i was out at sea.

Ill post what happens today after getting the road force balance.

 

[Shotzy]

You are probably wasting your time with all the balancing. I have the same issues as well and have gone through them all.

I had this problem when I first got my car and switched out everything from tires to the whole FRPP suspension. And it was still there. After a while everything seemed to work itself out and the car has ran really good all winter.

Then I had a problem with my engine and it blew up on the side of the road. They had to replace the whole engine. (which they did and were great about) also when you replace the engine you have to reset the whole programming back to its original settings. Now I got the car back just as the hot weather started here in NY. But now the vibration is back just as it was before. I am now pretty confident it has something to do with the EPAS. But my dealer just keeps telling me I am crazy and its normal. But it is clearly not normal for my car as it drove great all thru the winter months. I drive 80 mile roundtrip every day and have 20,000 miles on my car. So I have a pretty good sample to know what is normal for my car.

I just think they dont have much experience with this system.

My theory is that the EPAS is causing the vibration as a over reaction to road imperfections. Either the adaptive learning of the computer learns how to stop this over many miles and it will simply work itself out again and be gone for good. (hoping this is the case) Or it has something to do with the heat and humidity that causes this to happen. I say this because it seems to happen more in the afternoon on the way home when the temps are higher. Although it could also just be I have more traffic in the morning and just dont drive fast enough for it to happen.

But I really suspect the heat has something to do with it.

Look up argentini. He has a similiar problem with his and it to has showed its ugly head again. If you read the thread there is alot of bashing on him. But that doesn't mean his problem doesn't exist as there are many others that also complain about this.

Of course we all get drives normal from our dealers.

I have been toying with the idea of talking to one of the tuners to see if it is something in the programming. But just havent gotten around to it yet.

Good luck

Keep us posted.

 

[BK2BLKGT]

Well i just got back from having the road force balance done and still no go. Although they did find that 3 tires were off 1/2 ounce and the 4th was 1 1/2. They also said the tires or rims are fine. This was at Kramer tire in Hampton.

i decided to push it around 80-90 and its really noticeable, almost looks like someone has there hand on the steering column and is rotating it right and left..ugh.

im hesitant to bring it to ford and go through lots of wasted time while they tell me "its normal" or "we cant find anything".

maybe i should just forget about it..

 

[adspru]

OP, can you confirm the vibration is there when the tires are cold(fire it up in the morning and and get it up to speed really quickly)? And can I assume you are running the stock rims and tires from a GT/CS?

Shotzy may be on to something here with EPAS as well. I had some severe steering wheel vibration on heavy braking. Funny thing was that the wheels/tires themselves weren't shaking, just the steering wheel to the point where it was about ripped out of my hands. The issue has resolved itself over time, but try to get the service tech to go for a ride with you to explain that one, almost like telling them at 140 my hood shakes, let's go for a ride to duplicate it! If the tuners can adjust steering assist, that would be awesome. The may even be able to turn off the auto correction feature of EPAS.

 

[BK2BLKGT]

OP, can you confirm the vibration is there when the tires are cold(fire it up in the morning and and get it up to speed really quickly)? And can I assume you are running the stock rims and tires from a GT/CS?

Shotzy may be on to something here with EPAS as well. I had some severe steering wheel vibration on heavy braking. Funny thing was that the wheels/tires themselves weren't shaking, just the steering wheel to the point where it was about ripped out of my hands. The issue has resolved itself over time, but try to get the service tech to go for a ride with you to explain that one, almost like telling them at 140 my hood shakes, let's go for a ride to duplicate it! If the tuners can adjust steering assist, that would be awesome. The may even be able to turn off the auto correction feature of EPAS.

Yes its there at 5 am when i head to work after sitting in the garage all night, sometimes it even happens around 45-55 right outside my apt complex on the way to the interstate. This is smooth flat road also until i hit the interstate. That would be nice if EPAS were the culprit. I was thinking about the traction control too, i always drive with it completely off unless its raining.

 

[BK2BLKGT]

Did some spirited driving on the road outside my complex along with the interstate (mindful of the traffic) and with traction control enabled i noticed little to no oscillation in the steering wheel. Still felt a little vibration though but the wheel was not shaking. Now when i turned around to come back home i fully disabled traction and right away noticed my oscillation..hmm

 

[BK2BLKGT]

So i took my car to ford this afternoon for an appointment i had for this issue. While on the way there, traction control disabled..oscillation is there in the wheel noticeable as night and day. Took the service manager out for a drive, told him while AdvanceTrac is on, this issue is pretty much gone. He saw the oscillation and said "yeah that def is weird and doesn't make any sense as to why its not doing it while AdvanceTrac is on..

Told me i should come back on Monday when his so called "seasoned techs for alignments and electrical issues are there" so i now have an appointment bright and early 7am for this to be further looked at. I also had my car on a lift earlier for my shifter and spun the front tires listening and watching, looks smooth as butter..

I dont understand why this issue isnt present while AdvanceTrac is on as my understanding is the brakes are applied when wheels are not spinning in sync with each other or something like that.

Should i call ford directly about this and open a ticket or wait? just kinda expecting them not to find anything..Who knows.

 

[Shotzy]

So i took my car to ford this afternoon for an appointment i had for this issue. While on the way there, traction control disabled..oscillation is there in the wheel noticeable as night and day. Took the service manager out for a drive, told him while AdvanceTrac is on, this issue is pretty much gone. He saw the oscillation and said "yeah that def is weird and doesn't make any sense as to why its not doing it while AdvanceTrac is on..

Told me i should come back on Monday when his so called "seasoned techs for alignments and electrical issues are there" so i now have an appointment bright and early 7am for this to be further looked at. I also had my car on a lift earlier for my shifter and spun the front tires listening and watching, looks smooth as butter..

I dont understand why this issue isnt present while AdvanceTrac is on as my understanding is the brakes are applied when wheels are not spinning in sync with each other or something like that.

Should i call ford directly about this and open a ticket or wait? just kinda expecting them not to find anything..Who knows.

Please let us know what they find out. Mine is still there with advancetrack on but not as noticeable. I have never been able to drive in sports mode in my car. Hopefully they will find something.

 

[BK2BLKGT]

yah def, my appt got moved to tomorrow. Will post what they find.