I purchased new tires about a year ago and have had them rebalanced / road force balanced several times from the tire shop / the dealer / my regular car maintenance guy.

But I still frequently get a slight steering shimmy around 65-70mph on the freeway. Its just a little but annoying compared my previous tires (OEM RSAs).

I even had the dealer check for suspension problems & they claim everything was perfect. All i know is that before the tire shop put on the new tires, no problems, and now a persistent shimmy after multiple balances.

Could this be an alignment issue ? The car is not pulling to one side.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

What what tire size and what tire pressure are you running?

 

To me is sounds more like a tire issue and not an alignment one. If a tire is out of round or has certain other defects that can happen. Sometimes it's hard to detect. If you've exhausted all other options, a way to tell is to put different front tires on the wheels (even used ones just for testing purposes) and seeing if the issue persists. If it stops you know it was one of the tires. You can put them back on one at a time to isolate which one it is.

 

These are stock size tires for the g37 journey sedan i believe they're 225-50/17 at stock pressures of about 35.

Originally i purchased some Kumho Ecsta which were really bad with the vibrations then they switched to the current Michelin Primacy but still experience the vibration a little bit.

I have tried different tires, swapping front to back, etc and still get the vibration.

My brakes I believe are out of round also - is it possible for an out of round rotor to cause the steering wheel to vibrate EVEN WHEN NOT BRAKING ?

thanks guys.

 

If you have a caliper that is sticking, it could cause problems that you feel in the steering wheel even when you're not braking.

 

Tire pressure seems about right, you can always double check it to rule it out.

+1 to what BB said though. Further, if you want to check if a caliper is sticking, pick up a laser thermometer and measure the temps of all the rotors after a 5 miles at highway speeds. The idea is if a caliper was sticking, it would heat the rotor as you were driving (without applying the brakes). After a moderate distance you could pull over, braking gently, and measure the temperature of each rotor. If a caliper is sticking, the corresponding rotor should be measure much hotter than the opposite side.