Re: Is it my brakes or alignment? (long)

From: Doug Fedeli (rdf@eznet.net)
Date: Wed May 23 2001 - 01:59:25 EDT


Depending on where you had the tires changed you may have a bent rim. My boss
had new tires on his Caravan and after that he had a slight shake. Had
everything rebalanced and still shook. Took it to a different garage and they
found a couple of slightly bent rims. When the tire jockey took the old tires
off the rims he pulled the valve stem off and hit the pedal to break the bead
at the same time. The force from the machine to break the bead combined with
the pressure still in the tire was enough to bend the rim. When he went to the
tire place he actually saw them do that. They replaced all four aluminum
wheels on his van. If you can get a hold of a gauge to check for warped brake
rotors, set it up to check your wheels too.

Doug Fedeli

Andy Levy wrote:

> For a while now I've been feeling a subtle wobble that's speed-dependent.
> It's not severe - steering wheel doesn't shake (like it did when I had a
> pound of mud caked inside the rim), but you can feel it in your body ever
> so slightly. I had my wheels rebalanced yesterday (Monday), thinking that
> was the problem. All 4 wheels were slightly out of whack. I had a full
> set of tires put on at 28K back in January, I'm at 33K now.
>
> But this didn't solve the problem. I'm still feeling the shakes. And it
> gets stronger when I get on the wide pedal. I feel a slight pulsation in
> the pedal, but not a large amount, and not consistently.
>
> I'm thinking warped rotors, considering the wonderful luck the rest of the
> GenIII folks have had with theirs. But a co-worker suggested it may be my
> alignment (thought if I drove too long on misbalanced wheels it could hurt
> alignment). I'm not seeing any odd wear on my tires aside from some
> scuffing on the outside treadblocks on each front wheel. But I check this
> after making several low-speed turns on a roughly paved parking lot.
>
> Ideas? At 33K, my brakes aren't under warranty, and I'm pretty sure an
> alignment won't be covered anyway. Either way, I'm shelling out
> money...just not sure where to start.
>
> --
> -andy
>
> http://home.twcny.rr.com/andylevy/ --- andylevy@yahoo.com
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> modesty, n.:
> Being comfortable that others will discover your greatness
> -------------------------------------------------------------



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