You know it. I've used the guy for years and, if I had a functioning
brain, I would have waited until the car was out of the dealer and had
him mount the tires in the first place. The new alloys do look good,
though.

It is. I've about had it with the MXV4s on my '03 Sonata. I may try a
set of Kumho KH16s although the reviews on the Yokohama Avid series
look pretty good, too.

Excellent.  It's good to see a conclusive diagnosis to a problem like this,
rather than the approach that seems to go the route of do more alignments,
rotate the tires, do more alignments, do four wheel alignments, do more,
rotate thetires again... ad infitum.  So much effort is wasted in these
types of efforts.  Four wheel alignments being one of the more abused
things.

Most cars that can benefit at all from a rear wheel alignment can only allow
for a camber adjustment in the rear.  Camber is not the culprit in most
vibration related problems, yet too many owners suffer through, or worse...
pay for multiple four wheel alignments in pursuit of problems like this.

Hats off to your mechanic.  Go buy that guy a beer.

Isn't it a shame how many tires are so much better than Michelins, at far
lower price points?

In article
<5c198bc235c38016afa9d3c356cbca1d@localhost.talkaboutautos.com>,

We had the exact problem you describe with my wife's 2001 Elantra. It
was at the dealer for warranty work so, while it was there, I had them
mount and balance a brand new set of Kumho ECSTA 714s. Almost
immediately we noticed the steering wheel wobble. Several returns to
the dealer for rebalancing and a 4 wheel alignment were fruitless.

Finally, I brought it to my regular mechanic who, after remounting and
rebalancing them, ran a dial indicator on the edge of the wheels and
discovered that 3 of the 4 were out of round.  No salvage yard in my
area had any wheels for car and the dealer wanted an insane figure for
new wheels (I think it was over 120 USD each), so I ended up getting
some American Racing aluminum alloy wheels for $70 each. End of wobble.

BTW, the Kumhos are light years better than the Michelin MXV4s that
they replaced.

John

I think the first step is to verify the rims aren't the problem... i'll
likely wait till this storm passes and i get some nicer weather before
checking them out... if a new ones are needed then rims don't cost too
much but it's a place to start and it would give me some peace of mind
that they have at least been checked.

"jmh_ottawa" <john@minasu.com> wrote in message

When wheels don't come of easily, a big hammer is the tool of choice. No,
balancing won't make them straight again.  Have you tried raising the wheel
and spinning it with an indicator in place?  Does not have to be fancy, a
couple of pieces of wood and a dowel that just about touches the rim.

The alignements were done at the dealer and another garage.. both said they
were slightly out but not by much.

The rotors had been changed not too long ago but that was well after the
problem first showed up and has had no effect since.

The wheels have been rotated so many times that i now don't know where
they were originally when the problem first started.

Now i think about it more the rims themselves may be the issue as when
they were once rotated i do remember having a heck of a time getting them
off the rear. Perhaps they were damaged at that time... although i do
remember mentioning this to the tech's and they said a balancing should
sort that out..

One thing i've yet to try is a st of new rims if only on the front to
start.

There's a difference between belt shift and uneven wear. The former
WOULD be improbable on six tires, but the latter would be very probably
if there is an underlying problem with the alignment or worn front end
parts (joints).

It doesn't take long to trash a tire if the alignment or balance is out.

Who did the alignment? I've found that shops that specialize in
alignment are far more likely to do a good job than dealers or tire
stores. In particular, chain tire stores - or any chain stores - tend to
be problematic.

If the work has been done properly, that's true. For balancing, find a
shop with a Hunter balancing machine and a technician that knows how to
use it. Again, dealers and many tire stores - chains in particular - are
lousy at this.

Unless there is a visible wobble in one of your rims, that's not the
problem.

Here are a couple of other possibilities:

- One or more of the brake rotors could be badly out of balance (I've
heard of this happening with Elantras). If that's the case, no amount of
balancing of the wheels will solve the problem, unless they're done on
the car (not common these days). Even then, when you rotate your tires,
you'll have to get them re-balanced.

- The lug nuts may be over-torqued, under-torqued or inconsistently
torqued. If they were not installed using a torque wrench, they're not
likely to be correctly torqued. A reputable tire/wheel shop will ALWAYS
use a torque wrench on lugs.

I've had several new tires on the car so an actualy tire problem is
becoming improbably. I've been told that it's a possible belt shift but on
6 tires on the same car.. how many times can you replace tires at a cost
and keep being told it's the belts.

We're talking about 4 brand new tires that have seen less than 5,000 km...
all recently re-balanced after the initial installation.

After the tie-rod ends were replaced a while back an alignment was done..
none of this work seemed to have any effect so i took it back and asked
they re-check the alignement... which they did and said was fine.

At that point the focus shifted to tires... the two rear tires were
getting old so at this point ok 4 new tires and a re-balancing it is...

Yes the problem did seem to go away but only for about 2-3 weeks at which
point the problem returns.

After visiting my dealer and another garage...no one can really give me an
answer and i get comments like "well there's not much else it can be"...
i've changed tires, tie rod ends, had multiple alignment and balancings
done.

I've been told that balancing would take care of any rim issue and that
changing rims would be pointless but i'm starting to get tired at throwing
money at a problem that isn't going away. So far it's getting close to
$1000 over the past 6 months or so.

That sounds like a bent wheel or a tires that's either worn unevenly or
improperly mounted.

That would be consistent with the low speed wobble.

That sounds like worn front ball joints or tie rod ends.

If the tie rod ends are worn, attempting to align the car is an exercise
in futility. No reputable shop would do it.

Are they wearing evenly? If the alignment is off, uneven wear will
result and cause the problem

If it's a wear problem, that wouldn't be surprising.

How do you drive the car? Aggressive cornering, wheelspinning
acceleration and hard stopping can all cause wear issues and/or internal
tire problems.

It sounds to me like the tires are the most likely culprit. If you had a
seriously bent wheel, you would feel the wobble no matter what. Jack up
the car and check to see if the tires hop or wobble when you spin them.
Look for uneven tread wear. If you see any of these, you've probably
found your culprit.

2002 Elantra with 180,000 km highway driving...

Here's the problem but my dealer and another garage have yet to solve the
problem. I'm getting tired of paying to try things without a solution in
sight...

- steering wheel wobbles at lower speeds
- at higher speeds it's a vibration
- sometimes pulls to the left sometimes slightly to the right.. sometimes
not at all.

Here's what's been tried so far:

- Tie rod ends needed changing (Possibly unrelated)
- Several allignments (thankfully i didn't have to pay for all of them)
- Several tire balancings
- 4 new tires.. problem went away for a few weeks but is back again
- Re-balance made no difference

I suggested the rims may be the problem but i've been told several times
that the balancing would sort that out... but balancing is really the fix
if it was only a high speed issue right?

Any ideas or suggestions?