help with vibration / wobble

I have a 96' continental that seems to wobble left to right as I accelerate from a stop. Once my speed reaches about 15mph it seems to turn into a vibration that gets faster with speed. From 0-15 the steering wheel seems to have a slight left to right pull, but after that its smooth as far as the steering wheel goes. When I apply the brakes the vibration gets nasty and pulls the steering wheel from left to right very noticeably. However, the brake pedal feels normal with no vibration or pulse. I have had new tires twice.(two different sets) I have had it aligned, replaced brake pads, lines bled, rotors machined, tires balanced, new RF axle, both sides lower ball joints, as well as inner and outer tie rod ends replaced. I have done a lot to keep this car mint and its driving me insane not to have this problem fixed. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I was thinking of my response as I read your post and then you said you did everything I was going to recommend, even the lower ball joints.

Some other ideas might be brake calipers, CV joints, or tranny issues?

You have hit most of the common problems that would cause vibrations, pulling of the brakes. This one might be a difficult one to pinpoint without seeing and riding in the car.

Have you considered taking it to a shop or another shop to get a second opinion?

How old are your tires? Tread separation can cause a wobble.

Hello all, yes this one is very difficult. I travel about 3500 miles or so a month in this car and through various shops is how I came to spend a small fortune on it already. My local Lincoln dealer would like another $80.00 for diagnostics to try and pin-point the problem. I have tried both tires within the last two months. Discount Tire first sold me a pair of Arizonian (I think) - tires I never heard of before. These came off at the very next city as they made the car ride like those crazy chocolate milk commercials...lol. They second location refunded my money and put me into a set of BF Goodrich Precepts. -Much better handling and ride- these are about two months old now. Thanks for helping me with this.

**Side note, as a newbie here i did realize I goofed and posted under the Mark VIII section....sorry, for those of u who may may be thinking thoughts. However, from what I have read, everyone here seems to know what they are talking about.

I had trouble with 4 brand new tires earlier this summer. I took them back to the tire dealer and had them spin them on their balance machine. You could see that all 4 tires were defective.

The tread wobbled back and forth as the tire rotated. First they tried to tell me that my wheels were bent, then I told them to put a different brand tire on my wheel. It was fine.

The tire dealer gave all my money back to me.

Don't worry about the posting in the wrong section, that's what us friendly neighborhood moderators are for.

I guess it is possible that you do have bad tires. It almost seems that tire quality control has gone down lately, I've heard a lot about bad tires recently. Try a set of Michelins, maybe they still have their quality in check. Of course BF Goodrich is owned by Michelin so if you got defective ones from them, who knows.

Does the vibration change at all when the tires are rebalanced?

Any chance that the driveshalf may be part to blame?

MindyMark said:

I guess it is possible that you do have bad tires. It almost seems that tire quality control has gone down lately, I've heard a lot about bad tires recently. Try a set of Michelins, maybe they still have their quality in check. Of course BF Goodrich is owned by Michelin so if you got defective ones from them, who knows.

Does the vibration change at all when the tires are rebalanced?

Any chance that the driveshalf may be part to blame?

Click to expand...

My wife has a tread separation curse. She can buy any car and within 6 months, I'll be replacing one or more tires -- usually all four -- due to tire separation/wobble.

She will not ride on Firestone. So far, Goodyear is the only tire she'll have on her car.

I haven't been impressed with Bridgestone either. Their tires are ok, overpriced, and their direct dealer network is absolutely horrid. I haven't had good luck with Goodyear either - never felt safe with them. Right now my money is Michelin, BF Goodrich or Uniroyal, all made/owned by Michelin.

UPDATE:

I went back to Discount Tire today. I had them check the rims and tires for damage/seperation. Both were found good. They did a new type of balancing, (road force) I believe is what they called it. They found my fronts out of balance, and rear fine. They corrected and rotated them as well. The manager told me if I felt strongly that the tires were at fault they would replace them to keep me happy.

I then took them to another place and had the balance job checked and all registered "0." The other shop test drove and said I had bad rotors. Thus, we changed them again, and the "brake makes worse" issue is now gone. She still wobbles though! Mechanic dumb founded as well.

He checked the tires while on the balancer and said there were no signs of tread seperation. He did say though they had some movement to them and that a little was normal...not exactly sure what that means....

now We're Gettin' Somewhere

"She slipped up - Weeks of frustration and she slipped once."

I came to a stop, waiting to turn right, and then the steering wheel started the left-right sh#! while I was stopped! Problem....bad rack, no funny noises but definately not right. Ford says I need to replace both the rack and steering pump at the same time even though pump seems ok. Sweet, another $948 gone.

This will most definately be waiting til next pay day. They say that a bad rack will cause all the symptoms I had -as well as many other things. BUT, the rack is the only thing that can act on the steering wheel while not moving at all.

"Anyone want to buy a Lincoln?"

Wow! I've never heard of this happening.

Let us know how it turns out.

I don't know how difficult it is to replace a rack on a Continental but I'm sure that you could save a lot of money if you could do it yourself.