My SXT has about 12,000 miles on it and since day one I have always noticed a slight vibration in the tires/wheels. It was annoying enough that over the past year I have taken it back several times for rebalancing and rotating, and not much seemed to help.

So with only 12,000 miles, I sprung for 4 brand-new tires thinking maybe I got a bad batch of tires. Guess what? Same vibration problems at high speeds. Not rough vibration, but definitely noticeable. Even my passengers have commented.

So I took it back again and the dealer "road force" balanced them instead of a regular balance. They even replaced one of my brand new tires with another new tire because they couldn't get it to balance properly. Guess what? Same vibration still persists. I have messed with air pressure high and low, etc., and still I cannot get a smooth ride out of this car. I even rented a Magnum SXT for the hell of it and it drove silky smooth, same tires, and everything; no vibration on the rental.

What else could be wrong? I am starting to think it's not in the wheels or tires at this point, but maybe something in the axles, bushings, brakes, or something. Can anybody think of anything that I should ask the dealer to check besides tire balancing?? This is really getting on my nerves to the point where I want to sell the car. Thanks.

 

With 12k miles I would make the dealer keep it until the problem was fixed. There's one thing that I can think of that may cause the vibration other than a bad axle and that would be if you are missing one of the clips that holds the rotor on. I know with the aftermarket wheels you have to have a piece behind the wheel other wise you get a bad shimmy. If you are missing one of those clips it may cause the vibration. Just a thought.

 

Just had the same issue with my 05 ram with the 20" wheels. I had my drive shaft replaced, my wheels rebalanced by the dealer. Still no luck, then they told me the shimmy was normal, or it could be the tires, but guess what they do not warranty the tires you have to go through the tire manufacture and good luck with that (Goodyear told me to buy 4 new tires and then if they found a problem with mine after I when they turned them in, they would give me my money back, but if they tested ok then I was stuck with the bill WHAT GOOD IS A WARRANTY NOW A DAYS!!) I was fed up so went to Bell Tire and they found that I had 3 bent rims (they put them on the balancer and put a stationary gauge touching the rim as it rotated and you could see it touch then not touch as the wheel rotated) I took that info back to the dealership and with a lot of complaining and threats they replaced all 4 wheels and tires with another from the lot and PRESTO!!!!! NO MORE SHIMMY! They do not like to warranty rims because if the manufacture says there is no defect when the dealer turns them in, then the dealership has to eat the cost of the rim which to them is about 300$ after mark up. So unless you push the issue they will give you any run around they can before they tackle that issue. They did not warranty my rims but just swapped them out to sweep the problem under the rug. So tell your dealer to put new wheels on it and let you take it for a test drive and if the problem is fixed then there you go, but if not, then just put your old wheels back on it. Hope this helps, keep me posted!!
Chad

 

I have an AWD RT and have something like that. With 2 different tire brands and 2 different wheels, including the stock setup, when cold, the steering wheel shakes a little at about 40-60 MPH, seems to get better when the car warms up, but does not go away all together. Plan to bring the car to the dealer the night before next time I go, so they can drive it cold.

I also have the feeling that the wheel vibrates or buzzes more than most cars, like a tingling at all speeds. I feel that with my Passat as well, but not as bad, so maybe it's just my hands are sensitive or something.

 

I had a similar problem upon replacement of my stock RT wheels for aftermarket. The rotors will have a retaining clip on one or two studs that need to be removed for most aftermarket wheels. The stock wheels have a counter sink drilled into the back of the wheel holes so that the clip is not actually touching the rim. Most aftermarket wheels do not have this and will not seat completely flat up against the hub with the stock clips in place. Make sure you get "Hub Centeric Rings" for your aftermarket wheels as well. These insure that wheel is perfectly centered along the hub rather than just relying on the studs to center the wheel. After removing all clips and installing hubcenteric rings, vibrations went away. Hope this helps..

 

Thanks, but both of us are using stock wheels.

 

The right way to diagnose this would be with a vibration analyzer, but not all dealers have them.

What speed do you feel it at mostly?

Did tire work at least change it somewhat? If not, I'd look somewhere else.

 

It was the rims. I paid to have all 4 tires replaced, and that didn't help. They balanced the hell out of them with no change in vibration. Finally I asked the dealer to put on new rims, and to my surprise, they did (meaning, they paid for 4 brand new rims). BINGO! No more vibration above 60mph, and no more tire patter noise either. My Magnum was one of the first batch produced, so maybe there were quality problems. It had the vibration from day 1.

 

Rent another again and see if its smooth running. If so, swap the wheels with yours and see if the problem goes away. If yours are new just keep them and put yours on the rental If yours still vibrates, you know its not the tires or wheels.