Vibration in high speed (Scorpio SLX)

[anandiyer77]

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Hi Guys

I have a scorpio slx. since the last few months i am having some difficulty with the vehicle which the service station is unable to resolve, hence this post on the forum

Problem: If i drive a little over 80 or 90 kmph then i get a small vibration which i can feel in the steering. If i drive faster than that it gets more.

Earlier this problem was happening at speeds as low as 40 kmph. Then I took it to the service station and they changed the wheel ball joints (all four in the front wheels), steering shaft and steering intermediate shaft. they also did wheel alignment / balancing

The problem is much lesser now but still not completely resolved.

Can someone on this forum guide me on this? Is there some other part which I should get checked in the car? please note that I am not very 'mech savvy'

Thanks in advance for your help

Anand Iyer

[blue7.3]

Well, we don't have any Scorpio's here in the States, but your problem sounds typical of several possibilities:
1) Wheel or tire imbalance. Have the tires properly spin-balanced (static bubble balance is not enough). Maybe you just threw a weight.
2) Bad shock absorbers allowing the tire/wheel assembly to bounce on the road. You don't necessarily feel the bouncing tire, but that motion causes a cupping in the tire tread. Check the tire tread for unusual wear patterns. (I don't know what ype of shock a Scorpio uses but this can happen over time.)
3) Tire belt-seperation. It doesn't happen all that often, but occasionally a tire's internal construction can seperate from each other. You may see it as a bubble in a sidewall but you may not. It can tend to cause a vibration. Although it doesn't happen often, it is dangerous if it does so needs to be checked.
4) A slightly binding brake caliper warping a rotor. Usually this appears as a pull to one side but if it's just starting it might manifest as a vibration through the wheel. Usually the rotor starts turning blue from the constant brake pressure overheating it. This is easy to check, even if rotor is not blue, just put the front in the air and spin the tires. A binding rotor will not allow much spin.

There are other possibilities, but they get more exotic and expensive to fix. Hope this helps. Let us know how you do.

-pete

[Andy]

Thanks Pete! Good to have someone around that knows what their talking about

[anandiyer77]

thanks pete, i took your post details to the dealer earlier this week. He is looking into it. Will update you one i get the car back

Anand

[anandiyer77]

Hi Pete

Issue is now resolved. Actually it was resolved a while ago, but I did not have the opportunity to try driving at high speeds. Last weekend I drove on the highway and now there is no issue with this.

the things the guys fixed are
1. Wheel balance was not done properly by the service station, i took this back to a tire shop and they did a good job.
2. Differential ageing in the 4 tires played a small part - i now have a new set of yokohoma AT/S tires on all 4 wheels.

However the tire shop told me to come back in 6 months/ 1000 kms to see if the car is mis-aligning. this is just to double check

Thank you for your help once again

Warm regards, Anand

[blue7.3]

Outstanding! Glad it worked out for you.

-pete