Steering wheel shaking above 50mph

Big Chris · 5 Mar 2013 at 21:34

Getting a fair bit of steering wheel shake/wobble around 50mph in my Mk1 Focus. The most obvious cause would be wheel balance, but I had two new tyres fitted and the wheels balanced in Oct last year and it's been fine since, until a week or two ago.

Nevertheless, I took it back to the place I had it done and they checked it over, the chap said one of the front wheels needed a tiny bit of attention but not enough to cause significant wobble to the steering wheel. He sorted it anyway but it hasn't made any difference.

What else could be causing this? I've tried heavy braking and it's not pulling either way which perhaps rules out warped discs?

Big Chris · 5 Mar 2013 at 22:32

I'm assuming these are all things I need to get checked pretty sharpish then? Are suspension/steering bushes expensive to sort if they are the culprit?

Big Chris · 6 Mar 2013 at 11:28

Tyre pressures are all bang on, that was the first thing I did. They balanced the wheel again they said was slightly out but didn't do the tracking this time although that was done in Oct last year when they fitted the two new front tyres.

However, there's a lot of wobble coming from the steering wheel and I've not hit any potholes etc around the time it started happening.

If this is steering/suspension bushes, is it dangerous to drive at the moment? What sort of ballpark are we talking to fix?

Big Chris · 6 Mar 2013 at 11:36

It's a pretty heavy shake, like 1/2cm either way and you can hear/feel the juddering in the car too.

I've not smacked anything or had an incident that could've buckled the alloy to my knowledge.

Big Chris · 6 Mar 2013 at 11:50

It's booked in for an annual service end of this month, is this something I need to get checked asap though? Is it dangerous to drive potentially if it's steering/suspension bushes?

Big Chris · 6 Mar 2013 at 15:28

2 new tyres were fitted in Oct of last year, all 4 wheels were balanced and the fronts tracked. The car has been fine since then until about 2 weeks ago. The balance has since been checked again last week and they only found 1 wheel to be slightly out, which they rectified but it hasn't solved the issue.

The tyres on the front match, as do the rears, and I've only done about 1k miles since Oct of last year. Tyre pressures are also correct on all 4 wheels.

Big Chris · 6 Mar 2013 at 15:48

DVD Cinema said:
Have you tried swapping the fronts to the back?

Not a bad shout actually, I'll give this a go over the weekend.

Big Chris · 7 Mar 2013 at 10:16

Solved - mechanic took it for a drive this morning and said he thought a wheel/caliper was sticking as it wasn't coasting very well. Got it up on the ramp and the front-right wheel was indeed pretty tight.

Popped the wheel off and the inside pad was pretty much down to the metal, he thought perhaps the piston was pushing too far because of this and not returning. Inside of the disc is pretty shagged too so it's having new discs & pads, caliper seems to be ok thankfully. He said the build up of heat would cause the disc to warp which was causing the steering wheel shake, and explained why it only happened at certain times above certain speeds.