Vibration is Slowly Getting Worse...HELP!

[michaelmcl]

Hey Fellas,

I have owned my 2004 sport track for about a year now, just broke 45k miles. She is in pretty good shape with some under-body rust due to New England salty roads. When I bought her she had a very slight vibration at highway speeds which I assumed was due to an unbalanced wheel.

I have since had the wheels rebalanced, the alignment done, and new tires put on. Oddly enough the vibration has gotten worse. I now feel pretty substantial shaking in the wheel around 30 to 35 mph. At highway speeds it kind of hums instead of shaking worse.

The MPH the vibration was the worst seemed to change a bit when I put on new tires, but now it has just become lower and lower speeds.

I am a bit lost. Brakes and calipers are good as I did them within the past 5k miles. I am under the impression this isn't due to the tires since I have changed them, I even rotated the spare tire and always saw the same vibration.

Am I looking at a CV joint here or could this be as simple as the bearings? Any input would be awesome!

Cheers!

 

[michaelmcl]

I should note that I am not hearing the typical clicking or popping noise that is common with a bad outer CV joint. I have not noticed any unusual noises besides the humming from the vibration at higher speeds.

I don't believe the vibration is any better or worse when cornering...but with how torn up the roads are here after the winter it is hard to tell.

 

[morbid81]

does the noise increase with speed? if so its probably the wheel bearings

 

[boominXplorer]

With so low miles on the truck its obvious its sat at times, you probably have a tire out of round. Rotate your tires and see if the vibration shifts from the steering wheel to the body of the truck.

 

[sr139fox]

Drive shaft universal joints have caused vibration. Also a bent drive shaft will cause vibration, but unless you see damage on the drive shaft it is probably ok. Dave p

 

[michaelmcl]

...well again I changed the tires which didn't fix the issue so I can eliminate that. I should also mention that I need to turn the wheel a bit to the left to go straight.

Anyways I got the truck in a flat parking lot today and noticed at slow speeds it felt like I was going over humps. The left side of the vehicle would go up and down slowly and this appeared to be exacerbated when I turned the wheel though I am not sure about that part.

...so that being the case I am convinced it is a CV joint. Ball bearing wouldn't make sense for so much movement, but a CV joint with a couple ball bearings in really bad shape might...

Any mechanics that could give me their thoughts would be really appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[michaelmcl]

One last note, when I say the vibration is getting worse I mean it has gotten substantially worse in a very short period of time <100 miles.

 

[MidnightRebel07]

Sounds like a bad or both bad hub bearing assemblies, once they start to go their shot. I had bot of mine completely blow out at the same time and it was scary, It felt like the front tries were going to fall off. The only thing holding them on was the cv axle nut.

 

[Jeep2Ford]

First off I want to apologize if I am stepping out of line. I just had this same issue start about a month ago and I was reading every posting here about possible causes and possible repairs. I have done my home work with another vehicle I had a few years ago with same problems but different make.

I did my check list.
TIRES, BALLANCED, ROTATED. EVEN TOOK NEW TIRS OFF MY JEEP LIBERTY AND SAME ISSUE.
U JOINTS FRONT DS AND REAR DS
DRIVERS FRONT CV
Take a real good look at your tires. Feel the tires. Are they unevenly worn, cupped, shredding, are there flat spots?

My truck is an 04 v6 flex Explorer with 82,482 and well taken care of. (I HAVE A JEEP TO ABUSE)
My UCA ball joint boots were torn dry rotten and the struts and coils were pretty much weak. You push down on the front corner and it goes down up down up and half down then stops. RED FLAG!
It should go DOWN UP HALF DOWN THEN STOP.

I decided to replace both UCA’s and both strut coil assy’s along with sway bar linkages. Got it aligned and hit the road, got her up to 90 mph and no more shaking or bouncing.

Save yourself the time of process of elimination. LOOK at your UCA ball joint boots. Are they worn?
REPLACE the UCA’s and strut coils. Especially if your have more than 50k miles on them.
My problem was solved. BUT I now have to ride the fairly new tires until they wear down the rough spots caused by the bad ball joints and strut coils.
So far in this forum, I did not see anyone question UCA’s and strut coils. Everyone blamed DS, tire balance and alignment.

That is my repair and it eliminated the shaking issue everyone seems to be having and no luck solving.

PS.
I did the entire repair on my own with basic tools and jacks. Total repair for both sides were 3 hours.