Wheel vibration?
 

My 2003 has started to vibrate at speeds over 60mph, below that its fine, Its difficult to say it comes from the front or the rear, but is felt thru the drivers and pasinger seats.
The wheels and tyres have been balanced at 2 different garages, and very little adjustment on any of them, between garages.
There could I suppose be a few things it could be, bent rim, but surely this would have been noticed when they did the balancing,
Rear wheel bearing perhaps, but no noises heard?
Central drive shaft to rear?
Damper on the all wheel drive coupling at the rear perhaps?
Most of these are big jobs, but would need to be sure it was the causal part.
Has anybody had any experience in finding an answer please?

John

Hi namesake!

Does it start at about 50 and continue to about 60 and then stop over that speed?

I also have a my 03 automatic, Is yours also automatic and
Do you get any error codes at all? Another tell tale is loss of coolant

The symptoms I describe are due to the failure of torque converter, in my case due to water inqress from heat exchanger into gearbox oils. This can cause excessive vibration as the torque converter locks up on top gear between aprox 50 and 60 mph.

Just a thought and my experience.

Hope not the case for you, but in my case new radiator and gearbox full flush cleared mine and not too expesensive, about £300 parts and labour (nissens rad)

John l

No it starts at about 50 mph slightly then gets worse as the speed increases, but it the same even at 70 +mph.
It feels to me like a wheel balance, thats why I had 2 garages have a go at curing, I suppose it could be tyres as well, although they haven't done that many miles, will look it up to see how far they have been.
John

Check for binding brake calipers. They produce a vibration just like you describe. Also the wheel gets hot, so that would be a clue.

Start with the simple things, and don’t take it for granted that the garage would notice a duff tyre. Had this on my V70, wheels re-balanced twice, and it turned out to be a tyre with no obvious defects apart from being just over half worn. I discovered this by rotating the wheels. It’s quite obvious when the culprit is on the front as the vibration can be felt through the steering wheel.

If you feel it in the seats it may be other than wheels but if you have time, may try as suggested above, to move the front wheels to the rear - keep the wheels on the same side of the car.
Can you tell how the vibration did develop in time ? All of a sudden or over a long period ? Was any repair/maintenance done prior or any part replaced ? Besides the other suggestions from the other members, may also want to inspect the axle shafts (CV joints), these can be easily verified even without removing them https://youtu.be/u4dRIt2y3TQ These will cause vibrations both in the steering and the floor. Torn wishbone bushes can also cause steering vibrations under acceleration.

Does the vibration occur or significantly change as the torque converter locks at 55mph ? (i.e. when the revs drop and the tacho and speed needles follow each other) ?

If so it is transmission related - torque converter or propshaft joints/bearings

This was happening to mine but i also had a rear wobble at low speed so i checked the easy ones first ie propshaft bearing engine mounts egg on tyre or wheel weight dropped off??? I replaced all the tyres the wobble has gone but the vibration remains but i know the engine mounts hold no vacuum so mounts will be replaced asap first next ;-)

Is it worse when accelerating than when cruising or when off the gas, or does throttle input make no difference? I ask this because I had a V70 which did exactly as you describe, but it was worse when accelerating hard and much better when I let off the gas. I tried everything to find it. Eventually a friend told me to ge the drive shafts checked, and sure enough, it was a worn CV joint.

Still working on this vibration issue, I was under the car today and checked the damper on the front of AOC, on the rear diff and there seems a lot of play there, the outer cup is very wobbly, the part number in Vida is 30783163, not sure if the part has been updated. Looking at some of the couplings they dont seem to rubberised like the the original, does anybody have any info on this part please, is there a better part to fit now perhaps?
John