I just purchase a used 2002 Audi A4 3.0 Quattro a few weeks ago. I am getting a minor vibration not only in the steering but in the seat as well. The vibration runs thru your body and it is irritating. I love the car but this problem is killing the pleasure of owning an Audi. The vibration only occurs at 75mph or higher. It gets more prominent at 80 mph and above. I thought it was the tires. I got 4 new tires, a 4 wheel alignment and my wheels balanced twiced but the vibration is still here. Does anyone has a suggestion for the source of this irritating vibration?

 

Could be a bad tire... Like, might be out of round... but they should have picked up on that if they balanced them twice. How many miles on the car?

 

62, 000 miles. The road noise is pretty audible from the new tires and I had the dealer check it out. Nothing unsual. Wheels bearing are fine per dealer.

 

Yeah maybe a tie rod or something... a wheel bearing would be screaming at you in the corners, if it were bad enough to shake the car... actually... if a wheel bearing were bad enough to shake the car... .... yeah lets not think about that.

However... I was going to suggest you get a front end inspection done... BUT you just got an allignment you say? They should have picked up on anything that was wrong... I would hope!

 

I see a lot of bent rims that cause vibration concerns

They also should have noticed that too

 

Bent rims may or may not have been picked up. Audis are very senstive to this. You can have a rim that looks ok that shows up bent on a high end balancer. You may want to find a place that can take "road force" measurements of your rim/tire combo. This may show a rim/tire problem that was not evident with a regular balance machine.

 

Yeah, I'd get a front end inspection done... and find a place with a Hunter tire balancer... one that does road force, like the guy above mentioned. It doesn't just spin the wheel, it applies force to the tread. Usually costs 3x as much... but it's awesome.

 

I brought the car to the Audi dealership and they performed a road force test on the new tires. One of the tire had a high force rating coming from a flat spot from what I understood. I got the tire replaced and all is good.

Thanks for all your help.