Harold_Fastwake

Ok, FIRST, I have a new wheel set, all balanced with new tires. I also had an alignment done at Ptunning and they said nothing was bent and my alignment was only slightly off from toyota spec.

The Problems:
Car drives straight below 50mph and no acceleration. Giving it gas the car pulls slowly to the left (it did this with both wheel sets).

The car has a shuddering effect starting from the front and works its way to the rear. Occurs about every 5 seconds.

The wheel shakes but is not consistent as if it were an unbalanced wheel. At 65 it may shake horribly for a couple minutes then it calms down to just a bit of vibration. Few minutes later it can go back to bad shaking or I can cruise for 20 minutes and it will be just a slight vibration. Vibration starts to occur once I cross the 50mph mark. As stated it is far from consistent shaking.


What I have done to try and solve this:
-Wheels balanced
-4 wheel Alignment
-I jacked up the car and checked for balljoint movement (wheel has slight movement, but I have never checked this before so I have no idea what is considered normal or bad)
-I will be ordering Coilovers here shortly, still running on original stock shocks. (this probably does not help my wheel shake but I am sure its not the main cause)

Celica Specs:
155,xxx miles
Tein S-Tech lowering springs



I am at a damn loss. Last thing I want to do is toss $3,000 at this thing to fix this. But I am stuck with it for at least 1 more year. So this needs to be fixed, as it pisses me off driving to work with it.

Kris.Is.Foamin

Car ever been hit?

Check the subframe for damages. Also, does the steering rack have any play or slop? Worn balljoints or tierod ends?

Check all your bushings, some may be more than worn, yet can't be 'moved' by a person- but the car's weight could throw em outta wack.

Harold_Fastwake

Well, next on my list is to order new bushings for the front along with the coilovers. They are $300 bucks though, as they are only made by some company in England. Only other option is buying all new parts from toyota with bushings installed. I am hoping new bushings and coils will fix my issue.

Should I check for cracks in the subframe? Never had any mash ups with the car in the front. Only had my rear bumper scraped up.

The steering wheel seems to be pretty solid. Cant shake it or anything, no slop when I check it.

Kris.Is.Foamin

Hmmm, throw it up on a lift if you can- visually inspect the bushings for cracks or anything un-cool

Harold_Fastwake

Well I am going to order TwosRus endlinks since they are only $75 for the fronts. I know they are great quality as well, so that will be an easy replacement.

Al_P

Make sure your tires are good. If one has a splitting belt or something along those lines vibes may come and go. If possible rotate tires.


Did you actually see tires zero out? Dont trust anyone, as simple as wheel balancing is people manage to screw up all the time.

I heard water in tires can cause funny things. Water in shop lines can get in to the tire durring inflation.

Another obvious: if your wheels are aftermarket, got hub-centric rings on?


How are your struts? Funny thing is i just swapped my factory 120k struts and now all of a sudden i get the same vibrations. At same speed it will come and go. Mine started on the way back from the shop, i thought i left something loose but all is tight...I guess wheel weight may have popped off

Harold_Fastwake

Car is still on factory struts. Ordering coilovers shortly.

I have used 2 different wheel sets and still have the same vibration. Only difference is one set is 9inch wide and the other is 7inch wide. As for balancing, I stood next to the guy in the shop as he installed and balanced my tires. From my point of view everything he did was just fine.

The celica uses lug centric wheels, I take my time when mounting them and doing the proper star pattern for tightening the lugs. (my old set I used hub centric rings as well, but still had vibration issues.)

Tires are brand new, have 1,200 miles on the Falkens. My old wheels had 25k on them.

Fabrik8

Get your wheels bearings checked out. I just replaced one on my WRX and had a very similar problem with bearing oscillation, it would hum a three or four times and then stop, and hum three or four times times and stop.
Tire imbalance and tire wear usually have very constant rhythm and occur at most speeds, so those don't sound like your problem.

A bearing could also explain pulling to the left, bearing slop can cause lots of little problems.

Harold_Fastwake

By hum do you mean a sound or actual shuddering through the car?

Looks like bearings are $45 a piece for me.

Fabrik8

My bearing would shudder a little bit, but would "hum hum hum" and stop, and "hum hum hum" and stop. The fact that is stopped was what let me know it was a bearing problem, because tires can't really oscillate like that.

If you're getting a lot of shuddering you probably have a tire that's worn or unbalanced that's not getting damped because the shocks are worn.