At least 95% of vibration problems are tyre/wheel related so I think that its highly probable that yours is. Tyres can go out of shape due to ply seperation which varies with speed. The best way to check for this is to put the spare wheel on each position in turn, you will likely find that this solves the problem - unless you have two faulty tyres!

Had all 4 wheels rebalanced at that very good place this morning, they did so free and willingly. They said both rear alloys have flat spots. But the 2 front ones are OK, one of them they say they balanced to zero (which is as good as possible). However, the problem remains, observing carefully today it's worst at around the 70mph mark.

Will a garage be able to spot a worn component easily, that's my concern. If I say to them check the rod arm bushes can they do so inexpensively? As far as I know, they already have and saw nothing visually. Perhaps they need to move them about?

JC2, thank you, you're not the first person to say that about the weight. I mentioned this to them today and they said "stick on weights always have to be heavier than the other type". I don't understand why, I should've asked.

Edited by Lee1 on 03/05/2010 at 18:22

Thanks, Peter.

No, she's only done 77000 miles. And my Micra K11's done 106000 and perfect!

Main problem is now I don't know if it's the rims or a control rod bush or something else. The rear alloys have flat spots so no point to swap back, I've got to buy new ones to experiment with. I fear I don't know how much it's going to cost me to find out what's going on and I just don't know of a garage specialising in this to go straight to the issue. 2 new alloy wheels are about £100, my main worry is after that changing the steering/wheel components and getting nowhere - I've heard various horror stories of people spending £500 before they find out what it was. £500 would be a lot to waste in addition to what I have already wasted so far.

Edited by Lee1 on 03/05/2010 at 19:57

Years ago I had Ford Zephyrs/Zodiacs which would suffer wheel wobble if the track control arm bushes were worn, even with perfectly balanced wheels.

Modern frontwheel drive suspensions don't seem to be as sensitive but control arms may be worth checking - there is usually a critical band of speed when steering wobble is worst, faster or slower than that it doesn't occur.

Galileo, thank you, but how do I get the bushes checked? If you know, could you pls reply and tell ne what does a garage needs to do to check the bushes, or can I jack her up and check myself?

Dadbif, appreciate the anecdote. I will note that down for the garage. My old Micra had the Constant Velocity joints go over 3 years, but there was no problem with vibration. Does anyone know roughly how much garage labour is involved in checking the car's control arm bushes and CV joints? Thanks.

In my previous experience the symptoms of a failed CV joint had never been like this, clicking on full lock etc,

Yes, the click or knock sound was what my Micra had. Thanks for adding that info, interesting stuff.

Anyone know what sort of approx labour time a garage should take to check control arm bushes and CV joints?

Edited by Lee1 on 03/05/2010 at 22:33

Is it possible that one of the driveshaft boots contain water like the tyre did?

Peter, thats what I thought I had described, but upon re-reading my post it is possible to think that I was refewrring to the driveshaft, the shaft is what goes out of balance (ie is eccentric) as a result of the inner joint failing.

Not going to be a conclusion to this anytime soon.

My very good local garage (PM me for the name) took the car in today and checked over it for an hour or two in stages in between doing other jobs, because they're absolutely snowed under with work. . But they took 20 minutes alone just explaining the checks to me, so they must've spent a long time on it. In a nutshell, they said it has all the symptoms of wheel balancing but yet it isn't. They say it might perhaps turn out to be the suspension/shocks.

They have observed the vibration increases upon braking. This has only just started. The pads are a little thin but it was concluded the vibration was too great for the pads to be the reason and anyway the vibration is there without brakes applied.

Other things observed but said to not be enough in themselves to be the cause:

The ball joints have some play, OSF more than NSF, but not enough to be thought as the likely cause (RSA steering rack ball joint)

Suspension spring might not be in position

They (wait for it!!) rebalanced the wheels (8th time !) and said they found the weight to be out but not by enough to be the cause (they probably found the weight to be out because their own machine is not as well calibrated as the hi--tech place's)

They checked the tyres, the tracking, camber, castor, the whole lot, they swapped the wheels around again & went for 2 test drives, rebalanced, etc etc, no improvement.

"I hate being defeated, this is a real mystery" said the garage boss, "I'm at a loss with this, none of the things I've found are enough to cause it, but if you were going to try one more thing then it would probably be to replace the shock absorbers and see after that. But that's not a certainty at all."

Because they didn't find the cause they didn't charge me a penny despite spending at least an hour and probably 2. Can't imagine the main dealer doing that, they already told me my £62 was on a one-way ticket into their cash register.

However still Square One, as the garage did not seem sufficiently convinced it was the shocks for me to now spend on that. They are leaning more towards the car having had a Cat C whack at the front and being geometrically out somehow - but there's no trace of that other than the vibration, no giveaway paint splashes, and of course nothing on the history check (because Cat C I afaik doesn't get recorded).

As Toyah Wilcox might sing: It's a mystery, it's a mystery!

Hello Longron

I'm sorry to hear that story, really I am. Most Nissans are a lot better, although best car I ever had was a Toyota (back in the late 80s). I can tell you that I have heard negative things about 1.5 Almeras, but this warning re the oil filter housing on your diesel is one I shall bear in mind, thanks for the warning.

Yes, I too had thought about mud on the hubs, and I told the garage to recheck for any more water in other tyres and also look for mud, because the car was very muddy when it came to me (bought car in a village location, so couldn't road test at speed).

Here's the odd thing: since posting Thursday I have been up the arterial road and observed the vibration is suddenly less. I have no firm idea why. The garage told me that they had not fixed it, so didn't charge me a penny. I am left to wonder, did they tweak something but not feel confident enough it was the remedy for them to bill me for it, or is it better because the wheel config was changed, they swapped one that was on the front originally back to the front again (supposedly a wheel with a flat spot, according to 2 of the specialist balancing outfits) and did they swap one left to right at the rear or front, etc etc. Or has a bit of mud fallen off? Or is it because the tyre pressures are now basically wrong being higher at the front than rear 34 front 31 rear? Whatever, the problem is a lot better, on some strecthes of road you can't feel the problem at all (I think road surfaces make a difference). I am going to cover 100 miles next week inc the M25 which always gives me the vibrations and also the road to Chelmsford and back ditto. I will report back after that.

Even weirder, the garage boss told me he and his partner had road tested the car after they rebalanced and whatever else they tried and had noticed the problem still was as evident as before they did anything (whatever it is they did I am unsure, I had thought it was just rebalancing the wheels yet again).

Either they didn't really road test it after they did things, and didn't bill me because whatever they did they were not confident was actually 100% definitely the remedy as they hadn't had a chance to test it (very busy place) - or by fluke it was a bit of mud that fell off sometime between their road test and my road test. Some mud takes ages to fall off on its own, some of it is like baked on to the underside arches etc. It might only have taken a bit of mud the size of a 50p coin on a wheel to cause the problem, who knows? One would imagine that the wheel places would have spotted that, so maybe it's not what the problem was. If they did tweak something but didn't feel confident enough about it to charge me, I shall try to find out what they tweaked, and report back. I had given them a checklist to tick off, but they didn't bother with that I think, and gave me no written report of what they did although they did tell me verbally at length what they'd looked at. Basically, they saw a few perhaps worn-ish things but nothing that they felt could be the cause.

It's a bit of a mystery alright. I'll report back once I've done that 100 miles and rechecked the hubs are still clean! Thanks again, Longron.

PS For anyone else reading this re balancing - if you have steel wheels sometimes the imbalance can be caused by the wheel trims, well that's what one Nissan place told me anyway. Other tips include machines that need to take the weight of the nuts/bolts into account, and machines that can balance the tyres when they are actually ON your car. Some say that the best machine for balancing is the Hunter Road Force, but I really don't know, anecdotes from some people say that irons out even the worst as it spins the wheel through actual contact with a roller, more closely simulating the road. Expect to pay £18 to £26 per wheel for that machine.

Edited by Lee1 on 08/05/2010 at 23:25

Glad you got it 'fixed'!

As regards your tyre brand choices, I had a Bridgestone put on my van and it lasted one year/6000 miles, utter rubbish! Replaced with a Continental which is much better.

Michelins are the best constructed and hence balenced tyres out of the crate - they are streets ahead of everyone else in terms of consitancy - or at least were when I was a parner in a tyre fitting firm. Shame I can't stand 'em in the wet really! :-)