Steering wheel shake...

[greenrob]

Hello All,

I have a 1998 Boxster that at 75mph the steering wheel has a slight shake to it. Could this be because of tires being unbalanced or a cracked motor mount?

thx in advance!

[Loren]

Most likely tires and/or wheel balance.

Start with a balance and alignment check.

[larez2]

I had a 99' boxster a while back that exhibited the same behavior. Its not a crazy shimmy but yeah like a slight shake/vibration. Super annoying.

I started with free regular 4 wheel balance from discount tire. It didn't help.

I then got the car aligned. It was a bit out of alignment, but that didn't help.

So then i paid something like 50 bucks per wheel to get some sort of special balancing where they match the low spot of the tire with the whatever spot of the rim or something like that; i think it was called balancing with road force variation. It didn't help either.

Then i took it to the dealership and had the front end/suspension inspected and the car road tested by the tech. They tried to explain to me the vibration was normal road feed back. I could tell they knew something wasn't quite right but they didn't know/wouldn't admit it.

The thing that finally fixed it was getting new tires. My old tires were worn a bit unevenly, and even though they was lots of tread left, like 4/32ths even in the most worn area. And they weren't cheap tires either they were the Pzero Rosso's or whatever the Porsche approved tire was at that time.

So my point is it may be your tires, even if they are not worn to the wear bars.

Good Luck,

larez2

Edited August 19, 2009 by larez2

[kbrandsma]

I had the same thing and only new tires took care of the vibration.

[greenrob]

Wow the tires I have are fairly new (5k). But I did get them balanced helped a bit. My motormount was cracked replaced that today. It didn`t help much either. Looks like I might have to live with it for a while. Btw thanks for all the tips, this forum is great!

[infocusf8]

Wow the tires I have are fairly new (5k). But I did get them balanced helped a bit. My motormount was cracked replaced that today. It didn`t help much either. Looks like I might have to live with it for a while. Btw thanks for all the tips, this forum is great!

My '99 Boxster had that problem at 70 mph and I had Tillman's in Sebastopol do a full alignment and front tire balance and that took care of it. I also have Pzero's on my car.

[Halo]

I had the same issue with my '99, my mechanic performed what they called 3 plane balance on my wheels.

a simple balance dont cut it.

good luck

Halo

[MSHax]

It's all in the type of balance they do on the tires. If you go to a corner store tire shop where they're still use old school technology then you're only getting a good balance up to about 55 MPH, Scary I know. The best bet is the dealer or a high end tire shop that can do what's called "road-force balancing" this is much more accurate and is capable of balancing out those little shimmies at 70+. If you race your car, like I do, you definitely want this because even though you can't feel the shake anymore at 100+ it's still there beating the holy hell out of your steering/suspension components.

[Tom Lawson]

I have a 1999 Porsche Boxster with 92,000 miles and it has the exact same problem as stated in previous posts. I bought my car from a co-worker who ran over a pallet going to work. I purchased new wheels and tires but the problem persists. Those were from Tire Rack. I had the car four wheel alligned at Chantilly Porsche and it still had the steering wheel vibration at 60+ mph. I think I'll look at the wheel bearings and hubs before i buy more new tires. I know, I should have purchased Perili P-Zero tires instead of Bridgestone. I'll try new tires after i check those bearings/hubs.

Thanks for all the great information!