Vibrations at high speed

[jh_97]

Around a month ago, I had 4x new tyres fitted (which should have included wheel balancing), followed by wheel alignment a few days after. Over the past two weeks, I've noticed vibrations coming through the steering wheel, base of the seat and the driver's foot rest and surrounding area at 70mph and above, no matter the road surface. I've checked tyre pressures and can't see anything unusual with the wheeels/tyres. Sounds like the wheel balance needs checking to me, as I'm wondering if this was actually done when I had the tyres swapped. Any suggestions on what else I can check for?

[Agreeable Slick]

If you've aftermarket alloys get them on a balancing machine. Check for balance but also look at them from different angles to see if there is any out of round movement.

I had an puncture repair on one of mine and the guy doing it had somehow slightly bent the rim on the inside of the alloy. Caused a vibration at 65-67mph+ much the same as yours.

[Exonian]

If you stick to 69.9mph you’ll never experience the shakes and you’ll not get any points on your licence…  (unless you’re doing that speed down the High St too)

First thing I’d check is whether the wheel bolts are done up tight.

Other than that there’s the fact most roads look like the surface of the moon at the moment so it’s quite possibly a dinked rim, or a wheel weight could have come off which is feasible too.
Even a defective tyre is not out of the realms of possibility.

Check the bolts, drive to a reputable tyre fitter and get the wheels and tyres checked paying special attention to the inner rims.
Also when doing the alignment it’s not impossible that if they adjusted something it might not be correct or a bolt might not have been properly tightened. So that’ll be step three, going back there if all else checks out ok.

[jh_97]

Thanks both, did wonder about wheel bolts or something like that...

[madstaff]

Check the alloys, especially the inner edges, for damage due to pot holes??

Could've buckled a wheel.

[jh_97]

Will do, didn't check the inside edges before. Don't think I've been over any potholes as I'm super paranoid  but yeah the roads are horrendous atm, even "repaired" pot holes don't last a year around me... 

[jh_97]

Checked the wheel nuts with the tool kit wrench (that's all I have), and did find one on the front left that I was able to tighten slightly, all the others were pretty solid, so hopefully that's the culprit. Will find out on my way to work in the morning.

Couldn't find any obvious damage on the insides. Did notice that the front left has three weights on the inside edges, while the front right has none, but with some fluffy stuff on the outer edge that I assume is adhesive residue, but that's been there since for a while

[Exonian]

Probably best to get all the wheel bolts checked with a torque wrench, go back to where the tyres were fitted.
The fluffy stuff is likely the foam/glue residue from the weights that were fitted for the previous tyres that were scraped off by the tyre fitters this time round.
New weights can fly off before the adhesive sets leaving no sign of them being there. This often happens if the wheel doesn’t get hot on the first run or two after the weights are attached because the glue doesn’t always adhere properly when cold.

See if the wheel bolt tightening does the trick. If not it’s back to the balancing machine…

[sjw]

I had similar after getting a new tyre fitted. They balanced the wheels but one of the weights immediately came off. 10 minutes and it was all sorted.

[jh_97]

Yeah hope to get it sorted on Saturday.

I did check the wheel bolts with the supplied wrench (don't have a torque wrench atm), and found I was able to tighten slightly one bolt on the front left, all others were pretty solid. Seems to have fixed the wheel and footwell vibrations, but the seat squab is still vibrating