Vibration at Highway Speed -- the Odyssey
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Vibration at Highway Speed -- the Odyssey
I've had my B5 for a couple years and today is the first day it's 100% smooth and vibration free at all speeds. Very happy.
When I first got the car, it would shake at 58-62 mph and around 75 mph, with the heaviest vibration in the front seats and with no shaking in the steering wheel. The steering wheel was the only thing in the car that didn't vibrate to some extent.
Here's the list of stuff I did over time to try and remedy the issue:
+ Got the wheels balanced. No improvement.
+ I found that one of the rims had two really bad dings in the inner lip and switched it for a round and true rim. That helped some.
+ Got new tires, no improvement.
+ Got another set of rims with winter tires. No change.
+ Had to change the control arms and tie rod ends. Helped a little.
+ All three motor mounts were bad, so changed them. Helped a lot.
+ Changed the transmission mounts also, because they were cheap. Helped a lot.
+ The output flange seal was leaking, so I installed a cheap used OEM driveshaft since the other driveshaft was halfway out anyway. No change. The original driveshaft was pristine.
+ With the vibration still present, and the shaking in the car seats indicating the source being at the back of the car, I replaced the rear axles thinking that the inner CV's were shot. This eliminated the 75 mph shaking and smoothed things a bit overall. However, the damn 58-62 mph vibration was still present.
+ Switched out both front axles. Voila! The car is completely smooth at all speeds. Wow -- finally.
I thought that since the steering wheel was rock solid that the problem couldn't be the front axles.
Both front axles had serious rust and metal flaking that may have changed the weighting and balance of the shafts. Also, the inner cv joints were probably shot.
So that's it. Done! Car feels like it has 100k fewer miles than when I got it. Also, I drove 1100 miles over Thanksgiving and got about 8-10% better gas mileage on the highway with the new driveline (10x new CV joints & fresh high moly grease), so that's a nice bonus.
When I first got the car, it would shake at 58-62 mph and around 75 mph, with the heaviest vibration in the front seats and with no shaking in the steering wheel. The steering wheel was the only thing in the car that didn't vibrate to some extent.
Here's the list of stuff I did over time to try and remedy the issue:
+ Got the wheels balanced. No improvement.
+ I found that one of the rims had two really bad dings in the inner lip and switched it for a round and true rim. That helped some.
+ Got new tires, no improvement.
+ Got another set of rims with winter tires. No change.
+ Had to change the control arms and tie rod ends. Helped a little.
+ All three motor mounts were bad, so changed them. Helped a lot.
+ Changed the transmission mounts also, because they were cheap. Helped a lot.
+ The output flange seal was leaking, so I installed a cheap used OEM driveshaft since the other driveshaft was halfway out anyway. No change. The original driveshaft was pristine.
+ With the vibration still present, and the shaking in the car seats indicating the source being at the back of the car, I replaced the rear axles thinking that the inner CV's were shot. This eliminated the 75 mph shaking and smoothed things a bit overall. However, the damn 58-62 mph vibration was still present.
+ Switched out both front axles. Voila! The car is completely smooth at all speeds. Wow -- finally.
I thought that since the steering wheel was rock solid that the problem couldn't be the front axles.
Both front axles had serious rust and metal flaking that may have changed the weighting and balance of the shafts. Also, the inner cv joints were probably shot.
So that's it. Done! Car feels like it has 100k fewer miles than when I got it. Also, I drove 1100 miles over Thanksgiving and got about 8-10% better gas mileage on the highway with the new driveline (10x new CV joints & fresh high moly grease), so that's a nice bonus.
Last edited by redmond1501; Nov 26, 2012 at 09:51 PM.
Glad to hear you got it sorted out! Interesting about the axles, wouldn't have guessed that. My car wiggles a little bit between 70 and 75mph as well. My motor and trans mounts are definitely shot, I was gonna change them in the spring anyway.
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