Wobble Problem Mystery

Pauly99to17

Well-Known Member
9,176
6,578
Ville de Quebec
Vehicle Model
2012 LX
Body Style
Dyno Blue Pearl Sedan (FB2)
Car is wobbling. Seems to be more noticeable in the morning.
Car is lowered on Eibach Prokit springs. Car has Beeks tie bar. Car has 22 mm Progress sway bar. Car had wheel spacers, but they have been taken off and wobble remains so these were not the culprit.
Tires are brand new and are not the issue. Wheels have been checked and are balanced so they are not the issue.

Possible causes I can think of are:

Wheel alignment, but I doubt this is the reason.
Something misaligned in the suspension. Ex. When the tie bar was added could the control arms be off? I'm thinking this is the reason.
Could the sway bar be a possible reason?

Picture of tie bar.


image.jpg



Picture that shows control arms better. (Not my car)
This is where I think the problem may be.

image.jpg
 
Are you on aftermarket wheels? Might be your hub rings.
 
I'm on Acura OEM wheels so they fit perfectly. I'm wondering if I might have a bent rim. ? This might explain why the tire guys said the wheel is balanced but still has a wobble.
 
They should be able to tell you if the wheel is bent or not. I've had two wheels on the right side bent before and my steering wheel was shaking like crazy at highway speeds. Did you have any encounter with potholes recently?
 
They should be able to tell you if the wheel is bent or not. I've had two wheels on the right side bent before and my steering wheel was shaking like crazy at highway speeds. Did you have any encounter with potholes recently?
None that I recall. My wife drives the car too though. :ohnoes: She's already hit two cement parking barrier things and wrecked my front lip and the lower bumper so it's certainly possible that she has hit something else.
 
None that I recall. My wife drives the car too though. :ohnoes: She's already hit two cement parking barrier things and wrecked my front lip and the lower bumper so it's certainly possible that she has hit something else.

Sounds like you need to stop letting her drive the car.
 
Have you checked to see if any wheel weights have fallen off?
 
Did they balance the wheels or ROAD FORCE balance? Out of round can be balanced when just spun in the air but still transfer motion on the ground. Could even be a bad tire that the naked eye can't see. If they did do this were they all under 20lbs (ball park ok) Toyota recognizes 16lbs and fewer as good, the machines say 26 for passenger and 40 or so for truck/suv. I've seen as high as 60lbs and the tire only need a 1/2 oz weight. Even after the rim/tire were matched. But until I road force my tires here before i go on a road trip south i can't say what should be normal on these cars unless Honda has a spec. I have a on/off fast vibration 55-70 and i'm still factory heavy
 
^ not a bad idea. It could determine if you have a bent rim, or something else going on suspension wise.
 
I was able to pull my car in the shop at the end of the day today so i actually was able to road force my front tires. LF was at 18lbs and .50oz needed to be added. RF was at 7lbs and was in balance. I didn't force match my LF due to being lazy but balanced it out and as far i could tell was fixed since i didn't take my usual way home on the expressway. None the less i don't think these cars are sensitive to road force as much as some Toyota's I've dealt with.
What if you put your winters back on for a day to see if the wobble is still there?
Like stated switching to a whole different set that you know haven't been damaged would eliminate wheel/tire.
 
What if you put your winters back on for a day to see if the wobble is still there?
^ not a bad idea. It could determine if you have a bent rim, or something else going on suspension wise.
I was able to pull my car in the shop at the end of the day today so i actually was able to road force my front tires. LF was at 18lbs and .50oz needed to be added. RF was at 7lbs and was in balance. I didn't force match my LF due to being lazy but balanced it out and as far i could tell was fixed since i didn't take my usual way home on the expressway. None the less i don't think these cars are sensitive to road force as much as some Toyota's I've dealt with.

Like stated switching to a whole different set that you know haven't been damaged would eliminate wheel/tire.
I can't. There is at least one bent one because of my wheel spacers incident. Haha
I have other wheels but they don't have tires on them yet.
I'm going to have a proper wheel balance done and an alignment at the same time. Hopefully that will take care of it. You have to understand that it's bearable to drive with. It's a very minor wobble that can only be felt at slow speeds and when the asphalt is level (which is not often haha). The steering wheel does not move, I don't feel it when braking. Nobody but me notices it. The more I think about it, the more I think it's the balance. When I got the new tires the wheels et al were balanced and the wobble was less noticeable. The guy who put the tires on was young and I don't think he did a thorough job balancing them. He only had the regular balance machine.
 
Damn. The wobble was bad this morning. This is really getting annoying. I'm going to bring the car to the dealership, but would like to narrow it down so I don't end up spending extra cash for them to find the source of the problem. How can the wobble be there all the time, but so much more pronounced in the cold mornings? The tires are brand new. Logic tells me that if the rubber is cold and stiff in the a.m. that I would feel the wobble more. By the time I get to work, which is about a 30 minutes highway drive, the rubber has warmed up and the wobble is still there, but less noticeable. But the tires are new! I don't get it. If the wheel balance was the problem then cold a.m. temperatures would not have any impact.

Could this be a shaft center bearing problem?
I would also like to confirm that the 17" x 7"Acura CSX Type S (Enkei) wheels hub entered with this car.
Wobble seems to be situated more in the rear of the car.
 
I'm going to jack the car up one wheel at a time and move each one to see if there is any "play" movement in any of the suspension components. I will also spin them to see if I can visually see anything "off".
 
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Pauly I wouldn't just assume a new tire is going to be good. I see at least 1 if not 2 a day that get put on and Road Forced balanced to be way over the limit, most being Michelin's at that. If you can lift the car up on the front to get both tires off the ground you could (carefully!!) run the tires in 2nd or 3rd and see if you can tell an out of round. The back you'd have to hand spin but usually you can spin them fast enough to see any oscillation. This will also test bearings/noise. The road force machine will also tell you if a rim is bent and how bad it's bent. Can sometimes force match a "meh" tire on a "meh" rim to offset each others out of roundness and get low road force.

If its in the rear then rotate front/rear tires to see if it moves to the front. If not then it's going to be suspension and what not related to on the vehicle.

I agree if it's worse in the cold mornings and gets "better" as they heat up then its more than likely a bad tire. A trick i do (since i don't get payed extra to to force match a set of tires unless i bring it up which 9/10 times is a waist of time after the hassle of running the writer down) is to put the bad tire in the RR spot. This is only temporary as it transfers the least movement through the car to you. Most customers wont notice anything and by the time they do its 5k miles after a rotate where the bad tire is on the front axle and who's to say that they didn't hit something/throw a weight.
 
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