Intermittent wobble through steering wheel?

Hi guys, long time lurker short (?) time poster :P

Anyway, I recently upgraded my rolling stock to a set of audi s3 rims with a brand new set of falken ze912 tyres (215/40/17). While travelling on the freeway or at speed (100km/h+), I can feel a slight wobble through the steering wheel at the straight ahead position that comes and goes .At normal suburban speeds, the steering is fine and no wobble can be felt.

I was just wondering if this is a result of incorrectly balanced wheels or if it's just a result of the wider tyres and widened track giving me more feedback through the steering wheel...

The car is stock apart from an APR dogbone mount...(waiting for funds so I can get it tuned :()

Thanks guys :bowdown:

Most likely an unbalanced front wheel. Maybe get a good dynamic balance check.

Other possibilities is an out of round wheel/tyre, or maybe the spigot (centre of wheel) is slightly large/not perfectly centred on the hub. If you loosen the wheel lugs slightly then jack the corner up so the tyre is off the ground is there any movement between the wheel and the hub ? You can also spin the wheel and look to see if the tyre's contact surface is perfectly round or not.

Remenber to do this safely, never let any part of your body be underneath the car when it is up on a jack (and especially if the jack is an OEM one-sided VW jack - they are truly dodgyy), and tighten the lug nuts up properly when you are finished checking.

[QUOTE=gregozedobe;449469]Most likely an unbalanced front wheel.


I can't see an unbalanced wheel causing this problem where it comes & goes, no harm in getting it checked though.

Could be some thing to do with the alignment, any which way, a good wheel place should be able to tell you more.

Swap the wheels front to back, on one side and see if it goes away.

I have had experience of out of round tyres, the wobble was there all the time, just got worse with speed.

Gavin

Also, it is easy to balance a wheel on the machine and not take into account any flat spots on rims. These will only show up on the road.

Unbalanced wheel IMO would always be there at a certain speed, not on off really. maybe you have excessive play at your control arm bushes, this would cause on and off depending on the road surface. Tyres and wheels would always be there only get worse at certain speed like Gav said.
Jmac

Thanks guys for the replies, I guess I'll bring it back to the place where I got my tyres fitted and see what they have to say.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jasonc23

While travelling on the freeway or at speed (100km/h+), I can feel a slight wobble through the steering wheel at the straight ahead position that comes and goes .At normal suburban speeds, the steering is fine and no wobble can be felt.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jmac

Unbalanced wheel IMO would always be there at a certain speed, not on off really.

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I read the OP to mean the slight wobble came and went depending on road speed, hence my suggestion about out of balance. Anways, getting it checked out by the supplier is the thing to do :)

So I took it back to the local Beaurepaires where I got them fitted, turns out they didn't balance it properly the first time. I now have a wobble free wheel :)