Couldn't I just do the wheel rotation myself or do I need the whole car airborne?

 

A few things could cause the wheel shake, 1. bent rim/ out of balance rim 2. broken belt in tire, I had a tire with only 5000 miles on it go bad 3. warped brake rotor 4. bent or worn out suspension components. A good tire shop should be able to check the tire and rim.......SFC

 

At Costco it was $16.95 last time I had it done. Also if you get them rotated and balanced they should be checking for a bent rim. If the car shakes after they are balanced you know its not the balance.

As a general rule a bent rim in the front will cause the steering wheel to shake. A bent rim in the back will cause your butt to shake. I guess I should say shake worse. Did you do anything to cause this? Did it start all at once? Are you sure the rims and lug nuts are the correct style to center the rim?

 

Costco doesnt do it unless I buy tires from them.....weak. Lug nuts and everything is fine, suspension is fine, brake and rotors are brand new. Has to be the bent rim, I could even see the bent from the inside. Tomorrow I'm going to switch the wheel which I think is the cause of the problem with the stock one to see if it still shakes.

 

At my Costco if you buy the tire there is free once every 8000 mile. 16.95 if you did not buy them there

 

i had something like that happen to me. the tire was faulty and was unbalancable i rotated the front tires to the back and the vibration in the steering wheel went away and still vibrated but a different vibration at a different speed. once i got new tires (burnt off old ones) it went away. had a bent rim on a 69 1/2 ton chevy and we had a heck of a time finding it. the dang thing would balance on the old style balancer and when you spun it on the truck you could not see a wobble in the tire.

 

I am looking at the picture of your wheels with just about 2" of tire sidewall. Those extra low profile tires offer the wheels very little protection, and if you drive around on bad roads you should expect to bend a few rims. Ever since moving to PA I bent my share of wheels, even with tires having much more sidewall than yours. And yes, if the wheel is bent, the faster you drive the worse it vibrates. However, instead of debating the issue, just go to a tire shop and ask them to balance your wheeels. If the wheels are bent they won't be able to bring them into balance.

 

K so I replace the bent rim with one of my stock rims and the shaking is gone, mission accomplished, it was my passenger front rim and in the inside has three different bents. I'm going to take the rim to a rim bending shop in a couple of weeks, gonna charge me 130 to fix the bents but at least I know what it is now. Hopefully I won't have to replace the tire too, looks pretty worn out.

 

Are you sure it's bent? I would take it to a tire shop and see if they can balance it before I take it to get fixed...

And Pete I think 2" would be a bit optimistic lol.

 

I'm 110% sure it's bent, it's bent in three places.