Morris Minor Owners Club

...That could be applied to any type of car. I have a curious, worrying wheel vibration on our 1998 Skoda Felicia. I drove down to Basildon and on four occasions had to slow to a halt because of the problem. Each time the vibration started at speed and over the space of 30 seconds got more violent to the point where it felt like the wheel was about to fall off. When I braked to stop the car didn't pull, squeal or do anything to suggest the brakes were malfunctioning in any way. Each time I got underway again the problem would dissapeared for a considerable milage. The car is in very good order and has been recently MOT'd by a responsible, reliable garage.
Any ideas?

Few years back had a daewoo developed a similar thing - not long after having new tyres - which were all balanced. Even got the mechanic stumped - it would get this wobble at about 40 that just wasnt there before.
Anyway after much thinking he decided to give it a run without the wheel trims on - problem dissapeared.
Seems one of the tyres was thicker on one part of the wall than it should have been, putting the trim on just made it bad enough to wobble (dont know why) so that was that.
Have you had new tyres or anything lately? did they reset the tracking for the MOT ?
Dont blame the poor ole Skoda- I'd grind to a halt atthe prospect of going to Basildon once let alone 4 times

Have you had new tyres or anything lately? did they reset the tracking for the MOT

Nope. Funny thing is you can drive at the same speed for 10's of miles without a problem then something will set it off and it will go from mild to wild and you have no choice but to stop. Then, set off again and it will be fine. Then sometime later it will do it again.

I do have a wild guess as to what it could be but it doesn't completely add up. I won't mention it yet because I want people to 'think wide' on this one first.

I've just had the same problem on my daily driver.. Renault Espace..
I had the front brake discs & pads relaced last year for the mot and since than had a constant clicking/rubbing on the drivers side front wheel. I just put this down to the pads settling in, had it checked but nothing catching.. but it went on for nearly a year, recently though, I thought I had a front wheel puncture whilst doing 70 on a dual carriageway, it took some holding till I slowed down and stopped, no puncture on examination, the viberation on the rest of my journey was terrible, but then stopped, then re-appeared a few days later. My mate at the mot station checked it all for me and suggested it was the tyres, even though they were reasonably new, and a good make..
I decided to relace all four tyres for my familys safety.... no further probs; or rubbing noises... and I couldn't believe the state of the inside of the front tyres when the fitter at the reputable tyre centre showed me what I'd been driving on.. and they were only 18months old and in as new condition.. tread wise

Mal

Tyre, wheel bearing, or CV joint.

CV joint

Now you got me wondering. Why this? and why would it be erratic?

Does it feel as if the wheel is pitching too much in a corner,ie give too much over steer, or the problem present itself after a corner. I ask because my Peugeot 405 drove fine until put into a fast corner from then on it would patter terribly, and felt as if the wheel was about to let go, then it would disappear. I found the bottom metalastic 'A' arm bushes to be torn allowing the arm to move fore and aft and in and out. A visual check was not enough to detect the problem, only dismantling showed it.

Maybe worth putting the spare wheel on and trying the car again, first time in all the years I've been driving to see an expensive tyre de-laminating from the inside.. must admit I didn't put the vibration etc; down to the tyre

Mal

Have you got any water in the tyre from a contaminated air pump at service station?

Does it feel as if the wheel is pitching too much in a corner,ie give too much over steer

I am very sensitive to odd front end handling having owned a car with appalling wet weather grip and great dry grip. The Skoda has NO handling issues, no tramlining, pulling, rumbles, clunks or noise on full lock.

On the MOT (about 100 miles ago) there was an advisory for a CV boot and inspecting the car this morning that has split but there is very little oil contamination of the area so if it is a CV problem the joint is unlikely to be dry yet.
Thinking back I did get a huge amount of dirt and leaves on the underside of the car recently. Could it be possible that a lump of this got on the inner side of the wheel rim and caused imbalance. If so it would have to have moved en-route as I travelled 60 miles at motorway speeds before it happened the first time. Then another 30 before it did it again.
My initial idea was a damper problem. Perhaps it's past it's best and a particular surface irregularity is causing an oscillation that the damping can't control. It's possible the dampers may have done up to 70k miles - without checking the service history I don't know (i'm not at home at the mo). The usual 'push the bonnet down' trick doesn't fail but I know that can't be relied on.
So still stumped I'm afraid.

i had a similar problem on my saab i had 2 new tyres fitted and it just did not feel right.after a month i went back had them checked on a balencing machine the tyres had too much run off what ever that is,got my tyres replaced foc with better ones.

If the CV Boot is split, there is a good chance the joint will have thrown the grease out, and or allowed road crud to get into the joint.
The faster you go, the hotter the joint will get due to lack of lubrication. Needs fixed soon anyway, as the joints are not cheap, and if they snap, the driveshaft can cut through the floor.

The little A tie bars that JLH mentioned are also famous for worn bushes.

As Dave C suggests above - I would go with some water in the tyre(s) - it can form a nice even film on the inner surface with no effects - until something (a bump in the road eg) can make it lose contact with the tyre and rumble about inside the tyre in a wave - with obvious unbalance. Try changing each wheel in turn for your spare to see if you can isolate to one wheel - and then pull that tyre off to see if there is anything inside.

Thanks for all the responses. Because of my location this weekend it was difficult for me to view the message board. Faced with the possibility of a long journey with Mr AA, I have done a temporary fix and it got me 130 miles home without incident.
I decided the wheel had to be changed for the spare but on closer inspection with the wheel off the CV boot had split right round and most of the grease had been lost. I repacked and cable tied a piece of supermarket 'bag for life' around the joint which, miraculously, survived the whole journey home! So thanks Moggytech, I think you were first one there.
I guess, yet again, another job is going to get in the way of Alberts final MOT prep.
Not that I'm keen on taking him out in this weather... but all the same. Humph!

i had the same on my rangerover then you had to hold the steering tight but then disaper but then came back it had new shock,disk,brake calapers,springs,steering box,steering damper,tyres ,wheels,the lot and it never changed ,sold it on I DID IN FORM THE NEW OWNERS they said they had the same with there old one and lived with it
strange one that is

I had an Astra GTE once that came from the factory with balance weights loose inside the tyres .

I had the occasional wheel wobble, but nothing like as serious as you describe.

Only discovered the weights when the tyres had to be changed for natural wear and tear. The fitter showed me the wights in the two he'd taken off, so we took the others off too, and they were the same.

I guess there was someone at the factory who didn't get a bonus, and took it out on potential buyers...

I'd go with the water theory, but I'd get that CV joint seen to.