help..steering wheel wobble

[isbeemer]

hi i have an e30 318is (G reg) and seem to have generated a vibration like wobble on my steering wheel. It has never done this before, has started doing this after we had the steering rack replaced. I noticed that around 30mph and slightly over the steering wheel would do this wobbling and did it progressively worse at speeds of around 40mph -50mph. We had the front wheels balanced and it did make a slight difference not as erratic hence still there which is really annoying as i said earlier it has never done this before. Now we did speak to a e30 bmw specialist dealer who mentioned we may have the wrong wheels on the car, if so why start this wobbling now? The wheels that are on the car are 16" 5 spoke bmw(one thing though we are going to have to replace the wheels as a crack has been found on the inside of one of the wheels.) Help!!

[johnono]

hello mate and welcome!

dont panic fella, did u do the work or did a garage do it. check if they changed any bushes for u, and or the tracking. also u may have put the wheels on the wrong way over, or lost a balancing weight allong the way


the crack inthe wheel sounds abit drastic, sounds more like a tyre shop ploy to get u to buy some new wheels and tyres mabey


hand around, some of the lads will know exacto whats goin on

[johnono]

hello mate and welcome!

dont panic fella, did u do the work or did a garage do it. check if they changed any bushes for u, and or the tracking. also u may have put the wheels on the wrong way over, or lost a balancing weight allong the way


the crack inthe wheel sounds abit drastic, sounds more like a tyre shop ploy to get u to buy some new wheels and tyres mabey


hand around, some of the lads will know exacto whats goin on

[isbeemer]

steering rack was done at a garage went back to him coz it only started doing it after it had been to him explained was was happening and he said go and get your wheels balanced. took it to usual tyre man however he lumped his teenage apprentice much to our horror as the missis pulled him for making out he'd balanced the passenger wheel when he hadn't so we don't actually think wheels have been balanced properly due to lack of knowlegde and age, ( no direspect to apprentices that do have brains!) but there was a slight improvement though, shouldn't be ropey for going down at least a B road though so i'm pretty miffed!

[johnono]

hmm, pull off one of the weights and go back, tell him the wheel dropped a weight and youԚ´re not sure which one it was


result:

you get a free balencing, by the boss man hopefully,
the prent gets a chastising, in front of you hopefully!

[Martinaston]

After driving it for a while does one of the front wheels get hotter than the other ?

If it does you have a failed brake caliper that is binding.

[E30BeemerLad]

check the track control arm bushes (track rod ends) for excessive play, this usually causes a bit of wobble around 50mph

If you have aftermarket wheels fitted, do you have plastic rings on your hubs just around the big centre bolt? What I am saying here really is are your wheels centred properly?

Could there have been some on before and when the garage have had your wheels off to do the rack the spastics have lost them/ not put them back on?

I have the same characteristics on my car and it is annoying. I'm attributing half of mine to the 17" Alpina reps (BK 171's) which are apparently notorious for being wobbly.

Possibly going to revert to 15's soon so I get a bit of ride quality back

[Martinaston]

Spiggots is what i think your talking about beemerlad

If its the caliper you may want to also check the mating surfaces for rust between the hub and disc, If its corroded it can push the disc out of true (should be no more than 0.15mm runout) causing the brake pads to vibrate and heat up the caliper causing premature wear.

If you push the brake piston out 3/4 of the way and find holes in the seal you will probably find the chrome plating on the piston has flaked off and will cause the piston to stop returning once the padel is released.

[isbeemer]

so best idea is original plan of action-get some 15"s back on coz the 16"s that are on def don't fit in the middle properly which led me to think poss spiggot