Is this vibration normal?

[613GT500]

I'm sure it's related to the wheels or tires.
Anyone willing to change their tires and report back?

 

[Jimb003]

My 16 was back at the dealer last week. They replaced one tire and was able to road force the other three within spec. The ride is night and day difference! A little when the tires are cold but I'd say 95% better.

 

[Cobram76]

Hi,

So this is probably my first post on this site, but not my 1st time reading it.

I have been a mechanic since I could walk. I take better care of a vehicle then i do of myself.

So i have a 2013 Xlt Ex, 18 Inch wheels, 120 000 km on it.

Vibration since day 1, 80 kph to 110 kph, worse pulling trailers, worse going up mountain, worse when slight acceleration.
I can *control* it by moving from lane to lane at highway speeds.
No noise to be noticed.



Dealer has done:

- Front left and right axles.

- Rear diff assembly

- 1 piece front to back Drive shaft (2x)

- Alignment

- Upper rear knuckle bushings (left and right)(Yes you can get them at 80$ a pop instead of the whole knuckle at like 700$)

-4 Different sets of wheels/tires, (winter or summer) - Still vibrates

Now , what i see that is left, i jacked up the SUV on the body, put it in Neutral, remove Handbrake, i can move my front left axle on the Ptu / Tranny side up and down a good 1/4 inch total(up and down, not in and out of the tranny). I really think this is and always has been my problem, seal has been changed too...

The rear differential have very soft bushing, witch could lead me to think that the input pinion of the diff could move up and down, but i do not think its this cause i do not see how it could work with the changing lane part.

Brakes have been replace (the difference you wouldn't believe!) Cross drill/slotted zinc high performance, Rebuilt all 4 calipers, grease with high performance brake grease, maintained every 6 months(Winter/Summer tire change).

I have never ever spent so much time on a vehicle.

Steve

 

[peterk9]

bump

 

[flip4prez]

Anyone ever fix the vibrations from 40 to 70mph? I replaced.

*front struts and mounts
*all 4 bearings
*front stablizer links
*4 brand new michelin defenders.

Super smooth before 40mph. No vibrations before 40mph. After 40mph slight humming noise and vibration. Vibration also seems to happen going around slight bends.

 

[Sgt1411]

Anyone ever fix the vibrations from 40 to 70mph? I replaced.

*front struts and mounts
*all 4 bearings
*front stablizer links
*4 brand new michelin defenders.

Super smooth before 40mph. No vibrations before 40mph. After 40mph slight humming noise and vibration. Vibration also seems to happen going around slight bends.

I remember there being an issue with the driveshaft causing vibrations at different speeds around the same as your seeing. Check with the dealer see about TSB or SSV for same.

 

[flip4prez]

I remember there being an issue with the driveshaft causing vibrations at different speeds around the same as your seeing. Check with the dealer see about TSB or SSV for same.

Sorry i should of added 2012 xlt fwd

 

[peterk9]

Sorry i should of added 2012 xlt fwd

That info is shown in the margin when you post.

 

[PDExplorer]

I see a lot of posts here about tires and while it may be true for some, I don't think that's the cause for the newer vehicles. Here's what I experience:

When *lightly* accelerating on the highway from about 45 and up (without having the car downshift) the car has a suttle vibration, shuttering. Almost feels like a smooth road suddenly turns bumpy. But if you accelerate harder and the car downshifts, it's smooth as can be. Which leads me to believe it's most likely a tranny/driveline issue. My car is going into the dealer tomorrow for this, along with about 5 other issues that I'm having.

 

[dhorsfield]

This has been discussed by many on this forum. If you do an advanced Search on Vibration you will see the following thread.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=313947&highlight=vibration

Peter

I know this is really old, and I did sift through that link, but do you know if anyone has come up with a clear result of the shudder?

 

[peterk9]

I know this is really old, and I did sift through that link, but do you know if anyone has come up with a clear result of the shudder?

The 2 threads on the same topic have been merged. I don't recall a definitive solution to the issue. I don't think the vibration in every case was caused by the same problem. You'd have to go through the posts to see what took place.
My 2011 did not have it nor does my current 2017.

Peter

 

[Bart2Explor]

Vibrations can be caused by exhaust leak. Ford Explorer has this problem from 2011 and they still didn't solve it. This is very dangerous. Ford is already facing lawsuits. Exhaust leak produces CO carbon monoxide odorless gas that can kill. I would recommend buying a carbon monoxide detector to make sure you're not getting CO in your cabin. Check out this link with signs of exhaust leak. It all makes sense with vibrations. https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/is-it-safe-to-drive-with-an-exhaust-leak

 

[peterk9]

Vibrations can be caused by exhaust leak. Ford Explorer has this problem from 2011 and they still didn't solve it. This is very dangerous. Ford is already facing lawsuits. Exhaust leak produces CO carbon monoxide odorless gas that can kill. I would recommend buying a carbon monoxide detector to make sure you're not getting CO in your cabin. Check out this link with signs of exhaust leak. It all makes sense with vibrations. https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/is-it-safe-to-drive-with-an-exhaust-leak

Welcome to the Forum.
Several members have used meters inside their Explorers and from what I recall none of the readings were of any concern. Posts are in the following thread;
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums...st-smell-in-cabin-during-acceleration.323597/

Peter

 

[Bart2Explor]

Welcome to the Forum.
Several members have used meters inside their Explorers and from what I recall none of the readings were of any concern. Posts are in the following thread;
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums...st-smell-in-cabin-during-acceleration.323597/

Peter

I'm very glad to hear that! I don't have any vibrations problem but when I heard about Ford being sued over CO2 I bought my self a CO2 detector to my car. Just in case. Maybe every car should have some kind of Co2 detection

 

[MAFordFan]

I see a lot of posts here about tires and while it may be true for some, I don't think that's the cause for the newer vehicles. Here's what I experience:

When *lightly* accelerating on the highway from about 45 and up (without having the car downshift) the car has a suttle vibration, shuttering. Almost feels like a smooth road suddenly turns bumpy. But if you accelerate harder and the car downshifts, it's smooth as can be. Which leads me to believe it's most likely a tranny/driveline issue. My car is going into the dealer tomorrow for this, along with about 5 other issues that I'm having.

I'll have to call my dealer. To me it feels like an unbalanced tire virbrating but I don't feel it in the steering wheel, the truck just shudders. It only seems to happen when I get the vehicle up to speed and then let off the gas. As it starts to slow down... ~~shudder~~

Seems transmission related to me. I'll let everyone know what the dealer says.

 

[PapaGary]

I'm very glad to hear that! I don't have any vibrations problem but when I heard about Ford being sued over CO2 I bought my self a CO2 detector to my car. Just in case. Maybe every car should have some kind of Co2 detection

You need a CO detector, not a CO2 detector. They are not the same thing.

CO will kill you. CO2 makes bubbles in your beer.

 

[dudefish]

I'll have to call my dealer. To me it feels like an unbalanced tire virbrating but I don't feel it in the steering wheel, the truck just shudders. It only seems to happen when I get the vehicle up to speed and then let off the gas. As it starts to slow down... ~~shudder~~

Seems transmission related to me. I'll let everyone know what the dealer says.

I think a worn out driveshaft can do that. Good luck.

 

[Viper Driver]

Vehicle, Problem, Qualifications:

2017 Explorer Platinum. <2000 miles. Flutter/vibrations/wobble/shudder/et al... 40-70mph range. Personal background: Aero engineering degree; military flight test experience, decades of military fighter time. Backyard mechanic with descent wrenching skills. Shared only to let you know I'm pretty sensitive about machines and out of the ordinary vibrations/ noises. When you only have one engine and you're about to cross an ocean, you get pretty particular about your machine operating properly.​

Summation IMO:

Problem is aerodynamic. Ford likely knows about it, but will never admit it. In their words (offered from previous posts) this is "a normal characteristic of the vehicle". No real options available other than to put up with it. Long shots of TSB with fix, using lemon law to return to dealer, or class action law suit, but I don't see any of those things actually happening. Pretty pathetic for a $55K sticker vehicle, but that's the world we live in.​

Some details, experiments, findings and rants:

Test driving the vehicle before purchase I knew nothing about the lane departure system. On a rough cow path of a road, the system was constantly using the "wheel shaker" to warn me that I was close to the edge of the (single) lane. I thought something was severely wrong with the suspension, so I stopped and shut off any automated technology pieces that I could find and the problem went away. I actually thought this was funny at the time. Fast forward about a week. After discovering the front 1/3 of the vehicle had overspray on it (unknown why and still trying to get that resolved), we noticed the flutter problem while driving down a newly paved asphalt road. Normally on a road like this, I was expecting absolute smooth silence; that was not the case. What could this be? How could I be so stupid to buy another Ford product after my 2013 Edge turbo started to fail at 40K miles and Ford wouldn't do anything about it. Well, I come from a long line of Ford mechanics and owners, so I thought I'd give them one last chance even after I said "that's it" after the Edge experience. BTW, the only reason we would up with the Explorer instead of a new Edge is they redesigned the seats, made the seating edge bolsters bigger, and moved part of the seat frame up in to the bolster; didn't like sitting on steel railing since I've already logged >3000 hours of that in ejection seats, so we bought the EX Platinum. I digress, but the whole seat issue, spec brochures, what is actually available in the various vehicle models, etc was pretty sad too. I wouldn't want to try to order a new vehicle from the factory these days because I'd bet you'd wind up with something unexpected when the vehicle actually showed up on the lot. As I said, I digress.

From now on, let's refer to the flutter/shudder/etc problem as "Ford".

Found the TSB for the windshield/wiper cowling. Taped up the cowling and went one step further by plugging the gap between the cowling and hood with material as well as plugging the flow through vents from the front bumper to front wheel wells. No change in Ford.

Spent time analyzing sounds and frequencies from the tires because I had low expectations about Hankook's. Determined mostly that the freq band was too high for the Ford problem and the tires were only producing what I'd consider standard road noise.

Found that the frequency of Ford is the same that you get when putting both rear windows half down which BTW almost literally shakes the car to pieces at standard highway speeds. The front passenger seat was shaking so badly that it was almost funny, if not for the fact I just spent more on this vehicle than I made the first 2 years of being in the service.

Took all the plugging material out/off as well as the tape, then took the vehicle to about 55 mph which seems to be the worst speed for Ford. Interesting that used to be the speed limit for the country, but that has nothing to do with this. So as the Ford problem was shaking away at 55 mph, I used the remote mirror folding button to crank the rear view mirrors in. Ford didn't go away, but it did seem to reduce in amplitude furthering my belief that Ford is an aerodynamic issue. So let's address that.

If any of you are older than 50 or in to antique cars, you'd be hard pressed to find any kind of aerodynamic instability that this Explorer has when you lower the back windows. Why? Material thickness. Compare the thickness of the exterior door panels, hood, roof, (all the skin on a vehicle) of a 1955 Mercury Monterey with anything made today. No comparison. The designers still add all the wonderful muscle car year curves to modern vehicles but apparently don't take in to consideration the aerodynamic stability of the structure across the normal operating envelope. Back in the day, you could actually have a fender bender without totaling the vehicle; now I swear the hood and doors get huge dents in them just from looking at them. I must admit I have no clue if they test these vehicles in any wind tunnels test or the like during the design phase, but I'd bet whatever is done isn't worth much. Perfect example of lack of adequate testing before fielding is the Ford My Touch system (what a piece of crap and I'm starting to think the Sync3 is just a faster operating piece of crap, but again, I digress). If you are the Ford company, what do you do if you discover the Ford flutter problem during test driving? Probably too late and expensive to retool. Too thin of metal would require some internal stiffening or external fencing to redirect the airflow and limit the Ford experience. Oops, external fixes, there goes the gas mileage. So you race in to production and hope less than 1% of the 400000 units sold are to people who will notice or care and that of those 1% that maybe only 1% of those will try to do anything about it which is how we get to this great forum. Wish I had done better research before buying this EX.
​

Does anyone else find it odd that Ford thinks ""a normal characteristic of the vehicle" is synonymous with safe/comfortable and "not a problem" somewhat strange? Another sign of the times. Gotta think Henry Ford is rolling over in his grave with stuff like this. In the aircraft test world "a normal characteristic of the vehicle" might get you real dead until the correct redesign was implemented. I'm certainly not saying this is necessarily a safety issue, but it is certainly IMO a disaster somewhere down the road for the company. You can't continue to field pieces of expensive crap (best example was FMT) and not suffer repercussions. The younger generation doesn't have any loyalty like previous generations did/do, so Ford needs to get this addressed ASAP. Our son already bailed on Ford and is driving something else. Same with our daughter. This will DEFINITELY be my last new Ford. I'm still running my '03 F250 and my '63 Falcon (BTW, my other Falcon did Mach 2).

Somebody please prove me wrong with my theory that this is an aerodynamic issue without a current quick fix. On a positive note, this vehicle still beats driving a horse and buggy through snowy Ohio back county.

Thanks for reading and to all the posters before me on this frustrating and depressing issue.
​

 

[Forddealz]

Vehicle, Problem, Qualifications:

2017 Explorer Platinum. <2000 miles. Flutter/vibrations/wobble/shudder/et al... 40-70mph range. Personal background: Aero engineering degree; military flight test experience, decades of military fighter time. Backyard mechanic with descent wrenching skills. Shared only to let you know I'm pretty sensitive about machines and out of the ordinary vibrations/ noises. When you only have one engine and you're about to cross an ocean, you get pretty particular about your machine operating properly.​

Summation IMO:

Problem is aerodynamic. Ford likely knows about it, but will never admit it. In their words (offered from previous posts) this is "a normal characteristic of the vehicle". No real options available other than to put up with it. Long shots of TSB with fix, using lemon law to return to dealer, or class action law suit, but I don't see any of those things actually happening. Pretty pathetic for a $55K sticker vehicle, but that's the world we live in.​

Some details, experiments, findings and rants:

Test driving the vehicle before purchase I knew nothing about the lane departure system. On a rough cow path of a road, the system was constantly using the "wheel shaker" to warn me that I was close to the edge of the (single) lane. I thought something was severely wrong with the suspension, so I stopped and shut off any automated technology pieces that I could find and the problem went away. I actually thought this was funny at the time. Fast forward about a week. After discovering the front 1/3 of the vehicle had overspray on it (unknown why and still trying to get that resolved), we noticed the flutter problem while driving down a newly paved asphalt road. Normally on a road like this, I was expecting absolute smooth silence; that was not the case. What could this be? How could I be so stupid to buy another Ford product after my 2013 Edge turbo started to fail at 40K miles and Ford wouldn't do anything about it. Well, I come from a long line of Ford mechanics and owners, so I thought I'd give them one last chance even after I said "that's it" after the Edge experience. BTW, the only reason we would up with the Explorer instead of a new Edge is they redesigned the seats, made the seating edge bolsters bigger, and moved part of the seat frame up in to the bolster; didn't like sitting on steel railing since I've already logged >3000 hours of that in ejection seats, so we bought the EX Platinum. I digress, but the whole seat issue, spec brochures, what is actually available in the various vehicle models, etc was pretty sad too. I wouldn't want to try to order a new vehicle from the factory these days because I'd bet you'd wind up with something unexpected when the vehicle actually showed up on the lot. As I said, I digress.

From now on, let's refer to the flutter/shudder/etc problem as "Ford".

Found the TSB for the windshield/wiper cowling. Taped up the cowling and went one step further by plugging the gap between the cowling and hood with material as well as plugging the flow through vents from the front bumper to front wheel wells. No change in Ford.

Spent time analyzing sounds and frequencies from the tires because I had low expectations about Hankook's. Determined mostly that the freq band was too high for the Ford problem and the tires were only producing what I'd consider standard road noise.

Found that the frequency of Ford is the same that you get when putting both rear windows half down which BTW almost literally shakes the car to pieces at standard highway speeds. The front passenger seat was shaking so badly that it was almost funny, if not for the fact I just spent more on this vehicle than I made the first 2 years of being in the service.

Took all the plugging material out/off as well as the tape, then took the vehicle to about 55 mph which seems to be the worst speed for Ford. Interesting that used to be the speed limit for the country, but that has nothing to do with this. So as the Ford problem was shaking away at 55 mph, I used the remote mirror folding button to crank the rear view mirrors in. Ford didn't go away, but it did seem to reduce in amplitude furthering my belief that Ford is an aerodynamic issue. So let's address that.

If any of you are older than 50 or in to antique cars, you'd be hard pressed to find any kind of aerodynamic instability that this Explorer has when you lower the back windows. Why? Material thickness. Compare the thickness of the exterior door panels, hood, roof, (all the skin on a vehicle) of a 1955 Mercury Monterey with anything made today. No comparison. The designers still add all the wonderful muscle car year curves to modern vehicles but apparently don't take in to consideration the aerodynamic stability of the structure across the normal operating envelope. Back in the day, you could actually have a fender bender without totaling the vehicle; now I swear the hood and doors get huge dents in them just from looking at them. I must admit I have no clue if they test these vehicles in any wind tunnels test or the like during the design phase, but I'd bet whatever is done isn't worth much. Perfect example of lack of adequate testing before fielding is the Ford My Touch system (what a piece of crap and I'm starting to think the Sync3 is just a faster operating piece of crap, but again, I digress). If you are the Ford company, what do you do if you discover the Ford flutter problem during test driving? Probably too late and expensive to retool. Too thin of metal would require some internal stiffening or external fencing to redirect the airflow and limit the Ford experience. Oops, external fixes, there goes the gas mileage. So you race in to production and hope less than 1% of the 400000 units sold are to people who will notice or care and that of those 1% that maybe only 1% of those will try to do anything about it which is how we get to this great forum. Wish I had done better research before buying this EX.
​

Does anyone else find it odd that Ford thinks ""a normal characteristic of the vehicle" is synonymous with safe/comfortable and "not a problem" somewhat strange? Another sign of the times. Gotta think Henry Ford is rolling over in his grave with stuff like this. In the aircraft test world "a normal characteristic of the vehicle" might get you real dead until the correct redesign was implemented. I'm certainly not saying this is necessarily a safety issue, but it is certainly IMO a disaster somewhere down the road for the company. You can't continue to field pieces of expensive crap (best example was FMT) and not suffer repercussions. The younger generation doesn't have any loyalty like previous generations did/do, so Ford needs to get this addressed ASAP. Our son already bailed on Ford and is driving something else. Same with our daughter. This will DEFINITELY be my last new Ford. I'm still running my '03 F250 and my '63 Falcon (BTW, my other Falcon did Mach 2).

Somebody please prove me wrong with my theory that this is an aerodynamic issue without a current quick fix. On a positive note, this vehicle still beats driving a horse and buggy through snowy Ohio back county.

Thanks for reading and to all the posters before me on this frustrating and depressing issue.​

You most likely got a lemon or a bad apple, and it does happen once in every blue moon. Ford sold thousands of Explorer's and I see them every day on the road. I open up my back windows to half... lots of wind noise but the seats are not shaking like you describe.

The only problem I have is with dealerships. I tried 3 different dealerships for regular oil change. Last one at 8K miles, fuel filter, oil and they said cabin filter needed to be changed, I payed $180 or so bucks, at 14K, they say that 10K maintenance is due and some kind of fluids needed to be flushed, payed $270 which was about 200 bucks in labor and 70 bucks in oil fluids.
Sad part for me was that I wanted to disable double honk sound in my car when I open the door and leave the car, but no dealership has a clue.I payed $270 and after a few hours of labor just for oil change, fluid change they did not care about my concern.

 

[Forddealz]

You most likely got a lemon or a bad apple, and it does happen once in every blue moon. Ford sold thousands of Explorer's and I see them every day on the road. I open up my back windows to half... lots of wind noise but the seats are not shaking like you describe.

The only problem I have is with dealerships. I tried 3 different dealerships for regular oil change. Last one at 8K miles, fuel filter, oil and they said cabin filter needed to be changed, I payed $180 or so bucks, at 14K, they say that 10K maintenance is due and some kind of fluids needed to be flushed, payed $270 which was about 200 bucks in labor and 70 bucks in oil fluids.
Sad part for me was that I wanted to disable double honk sound in my car when I open the door and leave the car, but no dealership has a clue.I payed $270 and after a few hours of labor just for oil change, fluid change they did not care about my concern.

I told them you can just plug in a device, OBD or whatever and disable the code for that specific thing. They knew the computer that plugs in but refused to do it. They said that even if I reset any options by myself, It will get reset to stock options next time that I see them. I don't know if they are clueless or just did not want to help... really frustrated with this. Not all of us are mechanics.