Steering wheel vibes at 80mph - Vectra B

sophos9

Hi,

Looking for some help please. Had a full geometry setup and all around balance on the 2001 2.2 Vectra B, everything is fine apart from some annoying steering wheel vibrations at around 80mph.

I took it back this morning for balance check and all is fine, they balanced the wheels inside and out - I saw the high precision machine feedback wheels as balanced perfectly yet I still have 80mph vibes

We checked for movement in bearings, suspension etc and all is fine, wishbones show little wear so I'm at a bit of a loss on how/why this still vibes - it must be next to nothing as it so high in the mph

Anyone have any thoughts to share please - I'm all out of thoughts? :crazy:

Thanks

astra22bertoneauto

First thing I would of said was balancing too. Could it be a buckled wheel or perhaps the steering rack on its way out???

sophos9

Buckled wheel I can test with a DTI gauge and swapping fronts with rears

Steering rack has no play in it at all, no leaks and no indications of anything wrong. I've had issues with vectra and omega steering racks before and pretty sure its all good

sophos9

I'll change wheels over tonight and test - if no joy, will take it to Vx tomorrow for wheel balance then bug the hell out of them 🙂

JohnnyN

Front bushes can cause vibration problems. I had mine changed as I was upgrading to poly bushes anyway and everything went back to normal.

sophos9

At what speed were you experiencing vibration?

JohnnyN

90+. I also had a wobble under braking from high speed too. It was taken back to Courtenay for investigation as we thought that I had a bad batch of new discs that they had sold me but after a day in the workshop and extensive road testing it was the front bushes all along. Matt was with me on the day as he was having new suspension fitted.

sophos9

Interesting - I have no vibrations under braking at all but worth looking into, thanks for the tip

sophos9

I've just had a reply from Tony at Wheels in Motion here

Makes sense - the wheels were balanced from the centres and Vauxhall wheel centres are cosmetically central. Will explain why they are slightly out and vibe at 80mph.

Main stealer have the correct plates - will take it there at 8am tomorrow (need to pick some bits up anyways 🙂)

EDIT: He also says that on testing between centre mount and stud mount on average differs by 25g - worth noting this if you are having trouble after balancing 😉

sophos9

Rang main stealer - they do not have stud mount balancing gear so have booked in into the local Pug workshop as pugs usually have centre less wheels and have all stud mounting balancing equipment

Will also check the drive shafts tonight - damn cars :twisted: :lol:

sophos9

Amazing - just goes to show!!!

Took car to the local garage ran by a bunch of old boys. Explained to them about the wheels and they were every sceptical about doing it. They were worried that their equipment was too old and they could not get as accurate as the new stuff - I told them to proceed regardless

They set the stud plate up and balanced the front wheels - I paid my money and made way to the dual carriageway with fingers tightly crossed.

Took it up to a significant speed and bloody hell, no vibrations what so ever!!!

A standard old fashioned balancer using stud mounts vs. all singing all dancing dynamic balancer = old fashioned wins. In future, I will not be going near anyone that balances from the cosmetic centre

One very very happy dude right here cheers..

Matt

That's great news!

sophos9

Thanks Matt, is for sure. 2 thing spoil the driving experience for me - vibrations through steering wheel and off centre steering wheel, both are now sorted and with the new cat fitted last night, the veccy has never been so nice

Matt

My steering wheel is off centre as well. I didn't want to have the wheels balanced up yet though as I want the wheels refurbed at some point this year. Tracking could probably do with looking at though.

sophos9

Ah cool, not so bad when you have something like that to wait for - your car looks great :thumbup: . I had full geometry setup to sort it all out - veccy is sweet

blue_se2

Matt said:
My steering wheel is off centre as well. I didn't want to have the wheels balanced up yet though as I want the wheels refurbed at some point this year. Tracking could probably do with looking at though.

It will be the front wheel tracking that is out if ya steering wheel isn't straight matt nothing to do with wheel balance :thumbup:

astra22bertoneauto

Every time i get my tracking done somehow i manage to find the biggest Fc.ukin pothole and knock it back out again!!

Hareng

Same here some knob in a 4wd usually puts me off the road at least once a week, toffs think they own the road no thank you either.

Probably play in the wheel balancer, must make it easy to get on and off. 5 Crs are machined in with the central hole upon manufacture all from the rim, nothing cosmetic just passing the blame.