How-To Tuesday: What's Causing Those Bad Vibrations?
#1
Pole Position
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: WA
Posts: 258
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
How-To Tuesday: What's Causing Those Bad Vibrations?
While many things in this world are greatly improved by vibration, your Lexus is not one of them. Here's a DIY article to help you diagnose the problem.
Read the rest on the Club Lexus homepage. >>
#2
Vibrations are not typically caused by an alignment. Note that I say typically, as it can occur, but it is not the norm. Speed-specific vibrations, AKA achieving a resonance frequency, are typically a tire and/or wheel thing. Road-force balancing is a very good way to test this, as the machine is able to detect anomalies in the tire and measure runout of the wheel, allowing you to easily chase down a bad tire or a bent wheel. That being said, if balancing the tires at a qualified shop does not work, your problem is probably on the chassis itself. That's where it becomes more complicated.
At this point the issue could be a driveshaft, axle, axle support bearing, tie rod end, control arm balljoint, control arm bushing, warped brake hat surface(typically caused by improper mounting of wheel by a technician. Make sure to cross-tighten the lugnuts snug, then cross-tighten to spec), alignment(again, not common), lowered vehicle, bad wheel bearing(this is an extreme, as the symptoms of a bad wheel bearing will usually present themselves in the form of horrible growling or grinding long before it causes vibrations), engine vibration(easy to isolate, just shift into neutral and see if the vibrations cease), deposits on rotors(rotors don't warp easily, despite what people think. The pulsing is caused by uneven heating and depositing of brake material), etc
At this point the issue could be a driveshaft, axle, axle support bearing, tie rod end, control arm balljoint, control arm bushing, warped brake hat surface(typically caused by improper mounting of wheel by a technician. Make sure to cross-tighten the lugnuts snug, then cross-tighten to spec), alignment(again, not common), lowered vehicle, bad wheel bearing(this is an extreme, as the symptoms of a bad wheel bearing will usually present themselves in the form of horrible growling or grinding long before it causes vibrations), engine vibration(easy to isolate, just shift into neutral and see if the vibrations cease), deposits on rotors(rotors don't warp easily, despite what people think. The pulsing is caused by uneven heating and depositing of brake material), etc
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
ARIST
GS - 2nd Gen (1998-2005)
25
03-15-01 06:18 PM