Can anyone offer any ideas to troubleshoot a vibration in the front end of my 96 S6?
- slight sound at low speeds and I feel a 'wobble"
- gets worse with higher speeds and can be felt through the whoe car
- on the highway, when making a long right hand turn the sound and vibration gets quieter
- on the highway when making a long left hand turn the sound and vibration gets worse
- when I hith the brake, the sound goes away.

I thought it could be a CV joint, but that doesn seem to be the case. I recently replaced the LH wheel bearing, but no change.
It doesn't appear to be the brakes, as I don't feel any vibration through the pedal.

I just put new tires on it, as they were worn anyway, but it also sounded like a belt seperation in one of the tires (maybe that gives you a hint of the sound-type). That didn't make the sound go away.

It must be something that is in contact with, or has to do with wheel rotation.

Anyone have any ideas?

98k miles
5 speed

 

Get on a lift and have somone rotate the steering and you look under the car to see if there is any contact with anything and check you tierod ends and balljoints

 

I'd start looking at the basics.

Were the new tires balanced correctly?

when was the last time you had all four wheels alighned?

 

Use a floor jack and jack stands to jack up the car. Then try to rotate the right wheel with your hands. The tire should rotate freely. Do the same with the left weel. If for some reason any of the front tires dont rotate freely then take out the tires and see if there is anything causing the tire to get "stuck" (like the brakes not working properly). If the brakes are not causing the tire to get "stuck" then look at your CV joints and boots. If these dont seem to be the problem either then you have a problem with your transaxle. It might be that your differential is going bad. I would take it to a shop and have them look at it because you dont want to be driving on the highway when it fails. My wife's car is having the same symptoms that you described and the reason is that the transaxle is failing. Hopefully this is not your problem since this will probably cost a lot of money to fix.

 

tie rod ends?

 

either tire rods or allignment

 

There is a ton of info about front end, tire, etc vibration in this forum . Do a search see what others have found.