evilspoons Posted April 3, 2009 Report Share Posted April 3, 2009 I've got what may be one or two issues on my '04 S60 2.4 n/a, manual, fwd.When I am driving, I feel a bit of vibration in the steering wheel. It feels a bit like an unbalanced wheel or something, but I've had it with both my winter and summer wheels. It's not the road I'm driving on - I was testing a Pontiac G8 for a friend and it was silky smooth down the very same stretch of road. As far as I can remember, the vibration was NOT there when I took the summer tires off in November-December. It is a very gentle vibration that is not enough to make the wheel visibly shake, but you can feel it while you're holding the wheel and it's fatiguing on the highway. It seems more noticable at certain speeds (highway vs city driving) but it's there all the time.Are there any suspension components (bushings? slightly bent links of some sort?) that could cause a problem like this? Maybe it just *IS* an unbalanced wheel but I feel kind of stupid taking in wheels to get balanced for the third time in as many months. Note that I did hit something on the highway hard enough to bend a steel wheel, but I got the wheel replaced, and I got an alignment and an inspection since then and they didn't mention anything. Could it be a motor mount failing, transmitting more vibration through the car?The second vibration, which may actually be the same vibration as the first one, is just barely detectable while the car is sitting idling on flat ground, clutch in. If you hold your finger on the wheel you can barely feel something, almost a slowish humming. If it wasn't for the OTHER vibration, I wouldn't have though anything of this one, but I'm being comprehensive here. It is NOT the same frequency as the noises the engine makes, it seems a bit slower. I've never owned a FWD car before so I imagine that this could be perfectly normal.I still have Volvo certified used warranty until the end of May, but they charge $100 a visit so I don't want to take it in for things that aren't broken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watertender3c Posted April 3, 2009 Report Share Posted April 3, 2009 I've got what may be one or two issues on my '04 S60 2.4 n/a, manual, fwd.When I am driving, I feel a bit of vibration in the steering wheel. It feels a bit like an unbalanced wheel or something, but I've had it with both my winter and summer wheels. It's not the road I'm driving on - I was testing a Pontiac G8 for a friend and it was silky smooth down the very same stretch of road. As far as I can remember, the vibration was NOT there when I took the summer tires off in November-December. It is a very gentle vibration that is not enough to make the wheel visibly shake, but you can feel it while you're holding the wheel and it's fatiguing on the highway. It seems more noticable at certain speeds (highway vs city driving) but it's there all the time.Are there any suspension components (bushings? slightly bent links of some sort?) that could cause a problem like this? Maybe it just *IS* an unbalanced wheel but I feel kind of stupid taking in wheels to get balanced for the third time in as many months. Note that I did hit something on the highway hard enough to bend a steel wheel, but I got the wheel replaced, and I got an alignment and an inspection since then and they didn't mention anything. Could it be a motor mount failing, transmitting more vibration through the car?The second vibration, which may actually be the same vibration as the first one, is just barely detectable while the car is sitting idling on flat ground, clutch in. If you hold your finger on the wheel you can barely feel something, almost a slowish humming. If it wasn't for the OTHER vibration, I wouldn't have though anything of this one, but I'm being comprehensive here. It is NOT the same frequency as the noises the engine makes, it seems a bit slower. I've never owned a FWD car before so I imagine that this could be perfectly normal.I still have Volvo certified used warranty until the end of May, but they charge $100 a visit so I don't want to take it in for things that aren't broken.I've had a similar problem with my 03 S80, noticeable vibration between 55 and 70 MPH. Faintly detectable at lower speeds but pronounced at the speeds noted. After plaguing my tire shop for many wheel balances I like you began to think it was a bent axle or drive shaft. I recalled years ago when wheel balancing was done with the wheel mounted on the car, it was called dynamic wheel balancing and would pick up a out of balance condition caused by something other than the tires. I googled dynamic wheel balancing and came up with a procedure used on truck wheels but couldn't determine if it was applicable to car wheels. I posted my problem on one of the many Volvo forums I belong to and got a response from one of the members suggesting a system called Road Force Wheel Balancing. Searched that system and determined that a local Firestone store had one. Made an appointment to have my wheels done and the process came up with the report that one or more of my tires is out-of-round, apparently oval in shape and causing the vibration. This was not picked up by a conventional wheel balancing machine. This happened with a new set of Goodyear Suspense tires. I bought these tires based on a recommendation by Consumers Report at a cost of over two hundred dollars each and warranted for 70000 miles. I brought the bad news back to my tire shop and after some negotiation with Goodyear, Goodyear is replacing the entire set of tires for only the cost of mounting. ( have only driven the originals for 9000 miles). A fairly happy result except for the irritation, cost of wheel balancing,remounting, and possible damage to the suspension system on my car. Hope this helps and my apologies for the length of this post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboS60 Posted April 3, 2009 Report Share Posted April 3, 2009 Take a look at your lower and upper engine mounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JVC Posted April 3, 2009 Report Share Posted April 3, 2009 Axle is your problem I would put my money on, as stated above, vibration felt at certain speeds and not others tells me it's an axle, i just had to replace one due to this exact issue. I'd check that out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWinkey Posted April 3, 2009 Report Share Posted April 3, 2009 If your positive it's not in the tires .....I agree with the axle. My guess would be the passenger side only because it vibrates at speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PyROTech Posted April 5, 2009 Report Share Posted April 5, 2009 vibration or shudder? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilspoons Posted April 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2009 I can't really pin down exactly what it is. I'm not sure if the speed of the shaking changes at all with speed, it's harder to nail down than when I had an obviously out-of-balance wheel. That shook like bloody crazy at highway speeds and disappeared entirely doing 40 klicks. This seems more like it gets a little stronger at high speed - kinda makes me think it's an engine vibration and not any rotating parts directly attached to the wheels. That being said, I don't feel anything when I just sit there and rev it. Argh.What should I look for when checking the motor mounts? Where should I look? There's the obvious one up on top attached to the bar between the strut towers, but otherwise I'm clueless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboS60 Posted April 5, 2009 Report Share Posted April 5, 2009 What should I look for when checking the motor mounts? Where should I look? There's the obvious one up on top attached to the bar between the strut towers, but otherwise I'm clueless.Check the bushing on that one and if you remove the splash pan under your car, youll see the lower one that attaches the transsmision to the frame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWinkey Posted April 7, 2009 Report Share Posted April 7, 2009 axle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FistFull Posted April 8, 2009 Report Share Posted April 8, 2009 I just really hope u have a small flat spot in ur tire or something other then that its axel time....axle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilspoons Posted April 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 9, 2009 Upon further reflection (maybe I'm just imagining things now) shifts seem a bit rougher and harder to pull off, and my dad noticed a bit of a weird clunk when test driving it too.Took a good look at the mounts and the engine top bushing looks hatched. I have the old design before Volvo changed it to be (slightly) more reliable. I'm going all-out and am replacing it with the poly ipd bushing, in addition to the lower mount complete replacement so it doesn't screw up on me in the future (any warranty work would just replace them with the same crappy ones). For fun I also ordered the engine stabilizer bar upper poly bushing package.Once I've got all this installed we'll see how it feels.Maybe I still need an axle replaced (I imagine labour's the fun part when it comes to replacing them?) but these bushings can't hurt :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilspoons Posted April 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2009 Installed a replacement upper engine stabilizer mount, using the new design with a metal plate in it (didn't get the ipd poly bushing at the advice of my local mechanic). My difficulty shifting has gone away completely. The original bushing was torn in like six places!However, the vibration in the steering wheel has now increased slightly; BUT it is also apparent that it is pretty much consistent across car speed and it is very likely that it is the lower engine mount (not the torque mount). It looks a bit cracked - I'm going to replace that next.In this image, I'm talking about part "C". Has anyone replaced it on their own or is it difficult? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Young Burnsy Posted April 11, 2009 Report Share Posted April 11, 2009 I am having the same issue though it only seems like it is coming from the drivers side.I think it might be the rim though because I don't remember this happening before rotated the tires.How long does it take to change an axle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilled man Posted April 11, 2009 Report Share Posted April 11, 2009 Actually had the wifes car at the dealer today for a oil change and they pointed out passenger side tie rod end was loose and got a new one and that solved my vibration issue from 20-30mph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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