vibration and shimmy Options

[Zephyr]

My 96 had factory wheels on it. I drove it 300 miles from where I bought it and didn't notice any vibration or shudder in the steering wheel. I put some 16 inch rims on it with the right size tire and when I got to 50 and above it vibrated horribly. The tire shop said the wheels were bent, so they trued the rubber to the rim using a twelve thousand dollar machine that shaves paper thin parts of the tire off until the tire has been matched to the bent wheel so it will roll straight. That didn't fix the vibration. And to make it more confusing, before and after they trued the rubber to the wheels, that set of tires and rims worked perfectly on my 91 GTS with no vibration at all.

I purchased new 15 inch rims, thinking the 16's were too much wheel for the car. The problem is still here. The wheels are straight and balanced. The tire shop has tried three different sets of hub centric rings, thinking the wheel won't center up on the hub. The symptoms are sporadic now, sometimes the vibration wont' show up until 65 or 70, sometimes it shows up at 45, sometimes it doesn't show up for five or ten minutes at a stretch and I think the problem is gone. Sometimes it shows up at 45, dissapears for a few minutes and then comes back. Sometimes it won't be vibrating on a straight road and a curve will bring out the shake, sometimes it's vibrating on a straight road and the curve will get rid of it.

I've taken it to Toyota and they say it's the tires. They can't find anything wrong with suspension, drivetrain or steering components. The tire shops all say there's nothing wrong with the wheels, other than the issue of maybe not centering up on the hub, which the hub centric rings should fix. Toyota had the car in the bay for about 30 minutes. I don't know if this is long enough for a mechanic to really diagnose mechanical problems, I'm thinking they just blamed it on the wheels to get it out of the bay.

I've heard people mentioning bad hubs. Is there a way to check your hubs or is it something you just have to have replaced and hope that's what the problem was?

Anybody had this problem? Has anybody been able to fix it? I've seen some similar posts in the archives, but no one ever really comes up with an explaination of the problem nor do they find a remedy. I'm out 450 for the 16 inch tires and 520 for the 15 inch rims and everybody is telling me to go back to the friggin factory wheels.

HELP!!!

[speedracer_2020]

That's weird. My friend had a similar problem with his MR2 (first gen) and. he had to have each wheel manaully aligned.. try that..

[GeEkBoY]

i have heard of these problems before, but never had one personnaly. It usually turns out to be the hubs (you could pull them, set them up on a lathe, if you have access to one, and check to see if they are bent with a dial indicator). Though my mom's suv came with a set of tires that would not balance (ended up being crap tires; goodyears) replace the tires and problem solved. It is a difficult thing to fix and can be enxpensive. good luck!