Originally Posted by ppgoal

After reading and digesting your post and the answers, the bad news is that you might have to live with a small vibration at 45-60. If it's severe, that's a different story.

I have 137k on my A6, putting 100k of that on myself. I'm on my second set of Pirellis on the OEM rims, and usually switch to 18" with Contis for the summer (did not do this last summer because I took it off the road). I had a lot of problems when I mounted Coopers on my old 18" rims and ended up buying new Velocity rims and replacing the Coopers with Contis. During the diagnosis stage of the Coopers I had them aligned twice. The problem seemed to be that the Coopers were not compatible with the quattro. It seems these cars are more sensitive than most to tires and tire conditions.

That being said. I drove about 20k this winter and rotated the tires twice. The second time I started picking up a slight steering wheel vibration between 70-75 which was not there before the second rotation. It's not noticeable at lower speeds and goes away above 80. That makes me think that slight wear patterns in the tires can cause vibration as they are moved around. My indie shop checks out the suspension every time it's in for an oil change and finds nothing wrong, leaking with any of the components including OEM shocks!

I know this isn't much help, but my bet is that your suspicion about the tires wearing badly when the car was out of alignment is probably valid. Unless the vibration is horrible, you may just want to live with it until the tires wear out. Then have your alignment verified and have new tires put on. If the problem persist, I'm wrong and there is another problem or combination.

I assume you made sure your rims are clean on the inside. Sometimes tar or mud can adhere and throw off the balance just enough to cause a vibration. Good luck.

Originally Posted by SLINEA6

So I have had this car for almost 3 years now and it has been shaking since I purchased this car. When I say shaking I mean – steering wheel wobbles/shakes, you feel shaking in your seat, the car just seems to shake. What’s even weirder is that it’s not all the time while driving it. Sometimes it doesn’t shake at all and others it does. The dealers have rotated and balanced the wheels, no success, I was told it was my tires as they were worn, got new tires and had them road force balance the tires, no success, checked for bent rims, no issues, it had its 55,XXXX mile check up where they check the front suspension as I was thinking a tie rod or something up front was causing this, no issues found. The whole time I was not told anything about checking the alignment. So I fork out more money to do this because I figure this has to be it. They stated it was out of alignment and I was like yes I will actually finally have this car drive normal. This had to be the issue. They did the alignment and the rotated the tires, the issue is still there!! The dealer stated that the tires may be rough/or shaking for a while since the new tires were road on the out of alignment car. So I thought that must be why it’s still kind of shaking, the tires need to be worn normal. The tires were only two months old. It has been a month since the alignment was done and it’s still shaking off and on. I am willing to give it another month to see but I think it is something else. I am tired of putting so much money into this car and no one can fix it. I don’t know if I am being had or what here. I trust the dealer and they have been really good to me but you mean to tell me that new tires, road force balanced, alignment corrected and the 55 mile check up where they look at the front suspension parts are checked there is no issue but still shakes? I am tempted to take it to either another dealer or independent to see what they can do. Running out of options here and the damn Audi is a high maintenance bitch I tell you. We have a love/hate relationship.
Any advice that can be given would be great! Thanks!