Car wobbles around 20 MPH

Question

I have started to notice my 2007 Honda Accord EX V6 wobbles, just slightly.

At 5 MPH, It's not very noticeable. When I accelerate to 19-20 MPH, I can definitely tell that it's wobbling. The wobble stops when you go over 20 MPH, but then it starts to vibrate again at 80 MPH.

It feels like it is coming from the rear. The whole car wobbles, not the steering wheel. I got all new tires, a wheel balance, and an alignment, but doesn't seem to fix it.

What should I check?

Update: So I found out that my front wheel is slightly bent on the inside and that was the reason why the car wobble and vibrate.

Answer 1

A wobble is normally not affected by alignment. Seeing as its a FWD vehicle, there isn't much to go wrong back there, there are some simple checks you can do yourself:

Rotate the wheels. Move the rear wheels to the front, and front wheels to the rear. Observe if this changes the symptoms. A problem with a wheel might be missed by the tyre fitter, and a buckled or bent wheel won't always show up on a tyre balancing machine. Observe the wheels when you remove them - you might find the problem wheel, in this case replace it.

Also, when you have the car in the air, pull back and forth on each tyre (before loosening it). Pull/push at 12 and 6, and also at 9 and 3. Here you are checking for a bad suspension component such as wheel bearing or ball joint. There should be no play in the wheel. Any looseness here is dangerous, observe where the play is happening and replace that part.

I'm assuming you've checked the wheel nuts are torqued correctly and that the problem is not happening only when you use the brakes.

Answer 2

Like one of the other bloggers said...car wobble and/or steering wheel vibration/shimmy at low speeds is most always caused by steering/suspension problems. Worn/damaged steering/suspension components including a worn steering gear rack (too much play), etc... Steering wheel vibration/shimmy at higher speeds usually indicates unevenly worn tires, out of balanced tires, badly damaged rim(s), etc... In my case, I have a 2000 Dodge Intrepid ES and it wobbles a bunch at very low speeds. It's most likely my steering rack. I know this because a mechanic friend of mine couldn't do the alignment because there is too much play in the steering rack. The car, being out of alignment caused my front tires to wear out in an uneven way as well. So, I need to replace the steering rack, replace the two worn tires and then get the alignment done. I'm pretty decent with cars so I am going to do it myself. :-)

Answer 3

If you can feel the car wobbling at such low speeds and you've already put new tyres on it. You likely have bent rear wheel rim.

Answer 4

A low frequency wobble suggests a suspension issue. Problems with wheels or tyres are more likely to produce a higher frequency vibration which is proportional to road speed.

Small FWD cars generally have fairly simple rear suspension. A likely culprit is the plastic or rubber bushes which link the suspension elements to the chassis as these can often degrade over time resulting in excessive play. It is hard to spot problems with these just by visual inspection but if they are cracked or crumbling that is an obvious sign of failure.

Another possibility is the wheel bearings. Bad bearings will often also produce a high pitched whine, especially on cornering. You can check these by jacking up the wheels clear of the ground gripping the top of the tyre and rocking it towards and away from you, if you can feel any definite movement that can indicate a bearing going bad. Also turn the wheels by hand and feel and listen for any scraping or grinding noises or changes in resistance.

In general a wobble (as opposed to vibration or a drift in one direction) suggests something loose rather than bent.

Answer 5

Your suspension is probably messed up. This is usually caused by driving with mismatched tires. For example, if you get a flat and just replace one tire, you will have mismatched tires. Once the suspension is messed up, you often end up having to replace a bunch of stuff. What happens is that all the seals get all broken and screwed up and start leaking grease, then eventually they fail.

When this happened to me I ended having to replace the rack and pinion assembly and the tie rod assemblies on my front end. This happened because I replaced just one tire on the car (never do that).