Strange Vibration

[Pavesa]

Hi

I have a 2006 Explorer V8 4.6 liter with 141,000 miles on the clock. It's in really great condition. I bought it a couple of years ago and it's used as a work vehicle for towing 12' - 14' trailers with weight up to about 1,000lb.

It has developed a strange vibration that kicks in at around 50mph and increases to about 60mph and then persists at the same level from there on. It feels very like a wheel is severely out of balance. I had my mechanic drive it with me and he thought it was a wheel out of balance and told me to get them balanced. I had them balanced and it made no difference. If I'm going down a slight incline and move the gear shifter from D to neutral and let the engine idle, it makes no difference to the vibration, so it seems not to be engine or transmission related. I get the same thing whether I have my winter rims on (Toyo) or summer (Good Year). My mechanic checked things over - the U joint - fine, everything was tight in the suspension, axles/steering rack seemed fine. He has a theory that Ford has some proprietary additives to go in differentials that make it run smoother, but I'm not really convinced that's the explanation. I did find this although the Ford Technical Service Bulletin is for 2002-2005 Explorers but the post was about a 2007 Explorer that would be the same as mine and I have the problem in all gears whether or not the overdrive is off (the TSB refers just to 3rd gear overdrive off).

Strange humming/vibration

About a month ago I was driving on the expressway and I heard a klunk. It sounded like it came from the front drivers side. It actually sounded like my tire blew out. I hurried up and got over to the slow lane in case my tire was going flat and... nothing. All the gauges stayed good, tire...

www.explorerforum.com

I'd be grateful for any thoughts.

Thanks!

 

[07EddyB]

My first thought would be wheel bearings. Have any of them ever been replaced? There is normally a noise associated with a front bearing failure - basically it sounds like you are running mud tires on the road - and it gets worse through a curve. I've had issues with rear bearings where the noise wasn't really present but I did have a bad vibration at certain speeds. If you still have any original bearings then they were suspect at 100K - now they should be pretty much gone at 141K.

 

[Pavesa]

Hi EddyB

thanks for the suggestion. I bought it probably 15k miles ago and I haven't replaced them so I think all the bearings are probably originals. I'll get this looked into. Thanks again for the suggestion. I always thought the noise gave away a failing bearing but then it's normally the front ones I've had fail.

 

[fordlou]

I've had a noise (bit of a growl) and a bit of vibration on my 09. I think it is the viscous coupler as I had a slightly different size spare and this (I think) confused the AWD system and wrecked the V.C. I've been ignoring it and hoping it isn't causing more damage. I haven't looked into it yet. Maybe you have the same noise/vibration??

 

[94Eddie]

Hi

I have a 2006 Explorer V8 4.6 liter with 141,000 miles on the clock. It's in really great condition. I bought it a couple of years ago and it's used as a work vehicle for towing 12' - 14' trailers with weight up to about 1,000lb.

It has developed a strange vibration that kicks in at around 50mph and increases to about 60mph and then persists at the same level from there on. It feels very like a wheel is severely out of balance. I had my mechanic drive it with me and he thought it was a wheel out of balance and told me to get them balanced. I had them balanced and it made no difference. If I'm going down a slight incline and move the gear shifter from D to neutral and let the engine idle, it makes no difference to the vibration, so it seems not to be engine or transmission related. I get the same thing whether I have my winter rims on (Toyo) or summer (Good Year). My mechanic checked things over - the U joint - fine, everything was tight in the suspension, axles/steering rack seemed fine. He has a theory that Ford has some proprietary additives to go in differentials that make it run smoother, but I'm not really convinced that's the explanation. I did find this although the Ford Technical Service Bulletin is for 2002-2005 Explorers but the post was about a 2007 Explorer that would be the same as mine and I have the problem in all gears whether or not the overdrive is off (the TSB refers just to 3rd gear overdrive off).

Strange humming/vibration

About a month ago I was driving on the expressway and I heard a klunk. It sounded like it came from the front drivers side. It actually sounded like my tire blew out. I hurried up and got over to the slow lane in case my tire was going flat and... nothing. All the gauges stayed good, tire...

www.explorerforum.com

I'd be grateful for any thoughts.

Thanks!

I had a vibration from around 65-80 mph that normal balancing could not fix. I decided to try road force balancing and it took care of it. It turns out one tire/rim combination was much more out of balance than the other three. By spinning the tire on the rim and strategically placing weights from the inside edge to the outside edge it took care of the imbalance. I did this about two years ago at a cost of $125 for all four tires and it rides smooth to this day at any speed.

 

[Safi]

My 2006 Explorer V6 4.0L has 221000 miles on it.
It makes a weird heavy type of noise and light to moderate vibration when it goes to 70 mph and above. It does this for around first 30-50 miles when it reaches that speed. After that it becomes fine. It does that again when slowed down and sped to that speed.
Any idea what causes this?
Thanks!

 

[Pavesa]

Hi

well I took it to our local transmission shop. It turns out the bolts attaching the the front drive shaft mount had worked themselves loose causing it to vibrate at speed. Seems it was very close to falling off completely, so it was a lucky scrape!