bedro Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Autosleeper 2001 on Peugeot Boxer 2L petrol engine - develops moderate steering wheel vibration as I accelerate up between 40 and 50 mph. It appeared in May 2010 - covered at least 3K miles since then. Total mileage 40K+. Tyre pressures checked -OK. Wheels alignment checked - OK. Even had front wheels swapped with rear wheels - no change. Latest suggestion is to drop the drive shafts for inspection and ??? Any less costly suggestions please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enodreven Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 bedro - 2010-09-25 10:32 AM Autosleeper 2001 on Peugeot Boxer 2L petrol engine - develops moderate steering wheel vibration as I accelerate up between 40 and 50 mph. It appeared in May 2010 - covered at least 3K miles since then. Total mileage 40K+. Tyre pressures checked -OK. Wheels alignment checked - OK. Even had front wheels swapped with rear wheels - no change. Latest suggestion is to drop the drive shafts for inspection and ??? Any less costly suggestions please Hi, Have you had the wheels balanced as that is the normal problem with vibration, and its the cheapest thing to do first, I would have at the minimum the 2 front wheels balanced but preferable all 4 and include the spare if its not to much trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bedro Posted September 25, 2010 Author Share Posted September 25, 2010 Thanks for input. I should have included " front wheels balanced - very little change required. No improvement. Regards bedro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolandrat Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Whilst on the road have you felt the hubs for overheating as it could be a sign that you have a worn wheel bearing? If you need to replace one I would strongly recommend a genuine Peugeot one and make sure it is torqued correctly when fitted otherwise it could fail in double quick time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Hi Bedro and welcome to the forum, Have you checked your track rod ends and possibly ball joints (if that is what a Peugeot uses)? If you have a worn track rod end it will allow the wheel to 'shake back and for' giving you a vibration through the steering wheel. Worth checking as relatively cheap to replace. Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob b Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 I'd also check for a 'bulge' on the inside tyre sidewall. This indicates an inner ply separation and can give a vibration at the steering wheel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob b Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 I'd also check for a 'bulge' on the inside tyre sidewall. This indicates an inner ply separation and can give a vibration at the steering wheel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dikyenfo Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Would'nt hurt to pop a couple of ends on the rods. Use a good ball splitter and carefully count the number of turns and halves to fully unscrew the old ones to avoid having to re track the wheels. (lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Moore Posted September 26, 2010 Share Posted September 26, 2010 Probably a silly question, but have you got identical tyres on the front end? I once had a VW type 2 and put a new tyre on the front with a different tread pattern to the other one. Vibration was chronic but cured as soon as I matched the tyres properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted September 27, 2010 Share Posted September 27, 2010 bedro - 2010-09-25 10:32 AM Autosleeper 2001 on Peugeot Boxer 2L petrol engine - develops moderate steering wheel vibration as I accelerate up between 40 and 50 mph. It appeared in May 2010 - covered at least 3K miles since then. Total mileage 40K+. Tyre pressures checked -OK. Wheels alignment checked - OK. Even had front wheels swapped with rear wheels - no change. Latest suggestion is to drop the drive shafts for inspection and ??? Any less costly suggestions please Vibration at the steering-wheel due to problems with road-wheels/tyres will normally occur across a 'specific' speed range. Basically, if the vehicle's steering-wheel shakes between 40mph and 50mph, then, if the fault lies with road-wheels/tyres, the vibration is likely to occur whenever the vehicle is in the 40-50mph 'wiindow' , irrespective of whether it is accelerating, decelerating, or running at a steady speed. In this instance bedro says that the motorhome "develops moderate steering wheel vibration as I ACCELERATE up between 40 and 50 mph". If that is literally true, and the vibration only occurs during acceleration in the 40-50mph range, then the problem is more probably 'mechanical' than just to do with the wheels/tyres. As bedro's garage seems to have addressed the problem by doing the obvious things - re-balancing and swapping the wheels, checking alignment and so on - then inspecting drive-shafts, engine/gearbox/steering-rack mountings, etc. now sounds sensible. The vibration is said to have suddenly appeared in May 2010, with (presumably) no earlier signs of it. This also suggest a 'mechanical' change. The trouble with trying to answer this sort of forum enquiry is that you really want to drive the vehicle to experience first-hand what it's doing and then you want to check what the garage has already done to try to eliminate the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted September 27, 2010 Share Posted September 27, 2010 Have you tried switching the wheels front to back temporarily? It's a bit of a fag I know but it costs nothing except time and grunt and if it makes no difference you will then have a better idea about what it isn't? When the wheels were balanced can I assume they were checked for any buckle or ovality of tyres as these faults can cause balance problems? I don't know whether anyone in your area has the old 'on car' type of wheel balancer but theses used to be very effective on curing wheel balance issue on Fords with Macpherson strut front suspension and might be worth a try. It probably comes as no help at all to you to know that we had an A/S Talisman petrol with exactly the same problem and in spite of everything I did including new driveshafts I never did cure it completely and just learnt to live with it and drive outside the 'wobble range'. I toned it down but it was there till the day we sold the van so it would be interesting to discover what it is eventually! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolandrat Posted September 27, 2010 Share Posted September 27, 2010 This might sound like a silly suggestion but can you check your inner front wing plastic poppit fasteners that secure them to the steal bodywork, if you find any missing or loose then you will need to refasten them. It was mentioned to me during a conversation about a sudden vibration appearing that a motorhome owner experienced and drove him mad because he couldn't find the cause. If he drove up close to an HGV the vibration reduced until he picked up speed to overtake then it returned with a vengence, and the make of his motorhome was an Auto Sleeper Executive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cronkle Posted September 27, 2010 Share Posted September 27, 2010 bob b - 2010-09-25 3:39 PM I'd also check for a 'bulge' on the inside tyre sidewall. This indicates an inner ply separation and can give a vibration at the steering wheel. Good advice from bob b. Do you know the age of the tyres? You may not be able to see a bulge but if they are over 5 years old (or have been sat for prolonged periods without being moved) the tyres themselves could be failing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted September 27, 2010 Share Posted September 27, 2010 Tracker - 2010-09-27 10:04 AM Have you tried switching the wheels front to back temporarily? It's a bit of a fag I know but it costs nothing except time and grunt and if it makes no difference you will then have a better idea about what it isn't? When the wheels were balanced can I assume they were checked for any buckle or ovality of tyres as these faults can cause balance problems? I don't know whether anyone in your area has the old 'on car' type of wheel balancer but theses used to be very effective on curing wheel balance issue on Fords with Macpherson strut front suspension and might be worth a try. It probably comes as no help at all to you to know that we had an A/S Talisman petrol with exactly the same problem and in spite of everything I did including new driveshafts I never did cure it completely and just learnt to live with it and drive outside the 'wobble range'. I toned it down but it was there till the day we sold the van so it would be interesting to discover what it is eventually! Swapping front wheels for rears? Evidently this has been tried without success (see last sentence of para 1 of original posting). It's to be hoped (as you say) that things like wheel-buckle, lack of circularity and tyre condition will have been carefully checked when the wheels were re-balanced. It ought to be possible with modern equipment to accurately balance a wheel/tyre combination off the vehicle. However, it ain't always so. When I had all of my Herald's tyres replaced in 2003, very large weights needed to be put on the wheels to balance the new tyres, and actually driving the vehicle revealed serious imbalance. I took the Herald back to the tyre-fitting station and asked them to check the balance of the wheel with the most weight on. It was badly out of balance. I then asked them to re-balance that wheel, remove it from their balancing machine and then put it back on the machine and again check its balance. Once again it was badly out. The tyre-fitter (who I know well) said this sometimes happened when the hole in the wheel centre (that slides on to a 'cone' on the balancing machine) was actually off-centre in the wheel. He then bolted on to the machine (with some muttering and cursing) a sort of jig that attached the wheel to the balancing equipment via the wheel-stud holes in the wheel. This time only relatively light weights were needed to balance the wheels and there was no sign of out-of-balance vibration when the motorhome was driven So it is possible (though probably unlikely in this instance) that, even after balancing, a wheel may remain unbalanced. I wasn't convinced by the 'off-centre hole' explanation, though I was prepared to accept that the way my Herald's wheels fitted on the balancing-machine's cone prevented accurate balancing. 'On-vehicle' balancing shouldn't really be necessary and, as it is balancing not just the wheel/tyre combination but the rotaing brake parts too, it means that, if the wheel is moved to another axle, or even to a different position on the hub, there's every chance that imbalance problems will result. I recall having a wheel-imbalance problem with one of my Golf GTis. This didn't show up until beyond 80mph and the on-vehicle balancing experiment to try to get rid of it was very exciting indeed as it involved 'driving' the Golf at up to 100mph with its front suspension perched on trolley-jacks. Fortunately the exercise was successful and I never had to repeat it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted September 27, 2010 Share Posted September 27, 2010 I have had steering vibration on cars caused by the brake discs running out of true if that's the case you usually get a secondary problem of vibration under braking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted September 28, 2010 Share Posted September 28, 2010 lennyhb - 2010-09-27 7:51 PM I have had steering vibration on cars caused by the brake discs running out of true if that's the case you usually get a secondary problem of vibration under braking. Vibration at the steering-wheel will be a pretty much inevitable consequence of a brake disk warping permanently, or temporarily during braking. Although the problem is far from rare, I've only experienced it once, on a Toyota Corolla. The disks were replaced under warranty and the problem didn't re-occur. Disks will warp laterally not vertically, so warped disks should only produce vibration during braking as the overall balance of the tyre/wheel/disk combination shouldn't be affected. I did have a vibration-during-braking problem with the Hobby, but this disappeared after I had changed the front brake pads to a different make. I never knew if it was the different pads that provided the cure, whether it was a side benefit of the pad-replacement exercise itself, or a miracle due to me praying to St Ferodo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porkbrain Posted September 28, 2010 Share Posted September 28, 2010 I had the same on my 2002 Peugeot Boxer this May, a strong steering vibration only when accelerating between 20 to 40mph. Above that speed no vibration. The wheels were ruled out as the old tyres had cracks so I had new tyres fitted all round for its MOT. The vibration when accelerating was still present on new balanced tyres. All cured by replacing the nearside drive shaft, the part cost £140. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted September 28, 2010 Share Posted September 28, 2010 Derek Uzzell - 2010-09-28 8:26 AM I did have a vibration-during-braking problem with the Hobby, but this disappeared after I had changed the front brake pads to a different make. I never knew if it was the different pads that provided the cure, whether it was a side benefit of the pad-replacement exercise itself, or a miracle due to me praying to St Ferodo. Or was it because the wheels went back in a different position - ie rotated one or two wheel nut locations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bedro Posted October 2, 2010 Author Share Posted October 2, 2010 Many thanks for so many responses and suggestions. The van hasn't been in use since I input my query.I'll certainly test for overheating at the wheel bearings on its next spin. Must remember to remove the hubcaps! All your logical discussions show me how careful we must be in checking and stating the conditions when the problem occurs. I'll check - maybe it does always occur in that speed range and not just in accelerating. And I'll check for any tyre make differences after all that swapping. I'm very impressed by the vigour and knowledge shown in all your inputs and hope to be able to let you know the eventual "cure" before long Good (no - not luck) results with all your work. bedro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sticks Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 Hi,i had the same problem with my autosleeper,did all the usual checks IE tyres,brakes ,ball joints,balancing etc etc,Turned out to be the off side drive shaft,had it changed and problem sorted.Wasn't to expensive either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
747 Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 There is an easy way to check for incorrect wheel balancing. Jack up the wheel clear of the ground and see if there is a 'heavy' spot on the tyre. I always balanced my own wheels years ago, I just nicked a selection of balance weights any time I was in a scrapyard and it was quick and easy to do. I never experienced any vibration afterwards, so to do so would mean a simple check as I have outlined will definitely show up the problem. If the wheel is OK then it is mechanical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 Afraid it will not work 747. Sorry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
747 Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 Brambles - 2010-10-03 4:39 PM Afraid it will not work 747. Sorry! It used to for me :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 Not now though!! Front wheel drive, preloaded bearings etc. wider tyres needing dynamically balanced.... Jon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
747 Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 It may still be possible on a rear (non drive) wheel but I suppose there is no guarantee that the brake drum itself is balanced. Could work on mine with disc brakes all round. At my time of life though, it will remain hypothetical. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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