Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration

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Sat 17 Jul 2021 11:15
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - catsdad

My wife’s Mazda 3 has started intermittently vibrating through the steering wheel. Never when I am driving. Until today.
It was quite marked and when I checked the road wheels the front near side wheel was very hot with a slight smell of burning.

I am guessing a brake pad issue? What does the panel think?
Anyway I am booking it into the garage and we won’t use it meantime. I will report back in due course.

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Sat 17 Jul 2021 11:59
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - Railroad.

A partially seized brake caliper, or the brake pads stuck in the carrier. Most likely nothing that a simple free up job won't cure. Check the brake disc for hotspots. These are black or blue marks around the disc indicating it's got too hot. If it has them you'll need to replace the discs because they will cause vibration and judder when braking.

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Sun 18 Jul 2021 10:36
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - John F

Check the brake disc for hotspots. These are black or blue marks around the disc indicating it's got too hot. If it has them you'll need to replace the discs because they will cause vibration and judder when braking.

Not necessarily. I used to have a bit of judder on braking hard from high speed in my Audi. When the time came to replace the pads I took the opportunity to service the discs by applying a fast rotating 2cm thick carborundum wheel firmly to the on-car slowly rotating shiny business area of the disc to hone it, thus eliminating the 'hotspots' and restoring the surface coefficient of friction to uniformity. No juddering now.

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Sat 17 Jul 2021 16:00
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - Andrew-T

There may be a brake problem, but if there is an 'intermittent vibration' I would look first at wheel balance. If both front wheels are slightly unbalanced, and of very slightly different diameter (check tyre pressures too) the imbalances may go in and out of sync as you travel.

Just a thought.

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Sat 17 Jul 2021 16:52
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - Railroad.

As above, could be a wheel balance issue, although out of balance front wheels usually cause steering wheel wobble at around 40-50mph or even higher. Out of balance rear wheels will give a vibration through your seat. You can't balance wheels yourself, not unless you have an off car wheel balancer in your garage, and not many people do. So it's off to your local garage or tyre supplier to get that done.

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Sat 17 Jul 2021 21:12
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - catsdad

Thanks for the comments. My first thought was wheel balance but the heat suggests its a brake issue?
ironically I was already intending to get the garage to do a proper wheels off brake service at the next general service. Anyway it will be off to my indie next week if he can fit it in.

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Sat 17 Jul 2021 23:02
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - bathtub tom

Wheel bearing?

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Sat 17 Jul 2021 23:06
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - Andrew-T

Thanks for the comments. My first thought was wheel balance but the heat suggests its a brake issue?

You may have both ? Anyway, balancing the wheels should be worthwhile and not expensive.

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Mon 19 Jul 2021 05:46
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - edlithgow

Thanks for the comments. My first thought was wheel balance but the heat suggests its a brake issue?

You may have both ? Anyway, balancing the wheels should be worthwhile and not expensive.

Bearing failure (or maladjustment where that is an option-probably only on RWD?) could cause runout disk wobble which in turn could cause disk heating, plus direct heating from the failing bearing.

I suspect I have that but don't THINK it is severe enough to intervene (non-trivial on a "captive rotor"design) yet, other than spraying grease at it. No noticeable vibration.

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Thu 29 Jul 2021 16:26
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - catsdad

The problem has been investigated and repaired. It was a binding brake and seized calliper. The pads were ruined. The bill parts and labour was £220 which I thought was very good. They replaced the brake fluid, fitted a new caliper, did front pads on both sides and did a wheels off brake “service”. Labour was only £60. All VAT inclusive.

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Fri 30 Jul 2021 04:37
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - edlithgow

Seems cheap. Took me a long time, though I was rebuilding rather than replacing, and hadnt done it before.

Was all a bit of a mess due to sustained neglect (VERY old brake fluid) but cleaned up nicely.

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Fri 30 Jul 2021 12:21
Mazda 3 - Steering wheel vibration - Engineer Andy

The problem has been investigated and repaired. It was a binding brake and seized calliper. The pads were ruined. The bill parts and labour was £220 which I thought was very good. They replaced the brake fluid, fitted a new caliper, did front pads on both sides and did a wheels off brake “service”. Labour was only £60. All VAT inclusive.

Sounds familiar - my gen-1 car suffers from binding rear brakes if not used much and left outside. The combination of the lack of use during pandemic times and, especially for the rear brakes, them not getting much use anyway means that this issue can, if unchecked, get considerably worse, as you discovered

Regular use, including (when safe to do so) reasonably forceful braking once per trip (if the brakes were binding) to 'shake the components loose seems to mostly do the trick to avoid the issue. As well as the car being often 'stuck' when you try and move off, the 'scraping' sound (also for warped discs) can be heard when first moving off. If it soon goes away and no 'braking effect' is noticed, then it should be fine.

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