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New Technical Bulletin Issued for Steering Wheel Shake !!!

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#261 ·
sharing some thoughts.

Had a road forced set of tires and if I mount them using wheel hanger and torque in star pattern, they are fine, without having to rotate the brake rotor.

Replaced these with some new compounds last week and this time I went to an indie shop who doesn't have a road force machine. SWS and butt vibrations are very noticeable. I had to jack up all corners up in the air, rotate brake rotor, and torqued them a quarter turn a time in the air. SWS disappeared now.

couple of key things
- make sure you remove rust on the hub centric flange, this is the first suspect that can push wheels up and down.
- torque them in the air if you could, this avoids the car's weight preventing the beveled bolts pulling the wheels to the center. (Wedge a piece of 2x4 on the brake pedal.)

This generation Touareg is too sensitive on this... Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing... I've seen so many corollas having all their lug nuts hammered in without feeling a thing. lol
 
#262 ·
yuyueyuyue said:
This generation Touareg is too sensitive on this... Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing... I've seen so many corollas having all their lug nuts hammered in without feeling a thing. lol
Click to expand...
100% agreed. VW should just go back to the original hub with the built in centering ring used on the T1. The $0.008 of money saved and 1/8 ounce of weight saved on the shaved hub is not worth the problems it created.
 
#263 ·
I own U.S. Off Road, we manufacture winch mounts mostly for Toyotas and sell a bit of everything.. not really for VW's so I'm not pushing my business... :) But to give you a bit of background so you know where I'm coming from.....I've had all kinds of off road rigs..Jeeps, tons of Land Cruisers, etc, trucks of all kinds and plenty of performance cars, pro tourers, Euro, hot rods..whatever. Some trucks eat tires, some cars have wear issues... there is always one model here and there that just isn't set up exactly right from the factory... bad design, minor oversight.. whatever. I've raced on dirt and pavement, drag, road, ovals and currently have my 6 yo racing karts. I fight the tire battle all the time. I thought I understood tires well, until we bought Touaregs. Anyway...regardless, this VW has kept me learning new tricks to keep it happy.

My wife's 2013 TDI with 107500 miles as of today.

Both of the T3's I've had eat tires and I've read on here much of the same. VW even chipped in on a pair at 16k. I finally got tired of the OEM tires. Both of ours came with Pirellis which I kept on the 11 (traded on the 13) but then we tried the OEM Goodyears on the 13 as the third set...same thing, done in 25-30k. Uneven tread wear, vibration of course. We had the dealer do routine alignments often. Didn't matter. So at that point we are going through tires far too often, about half life, the thing vibrates and you had to stay on alignments. No fun.

Then, on the 4th set I tried the Nitto 421Q and with about 20-25k on them 13 months later (my wife drives it, she's a Realtor) they still ride great, handles well, wet included, maybe a touch noisier than the Scorpions but I like them a lot as they have a lightly more aggressive tread (hence the noise if any) so when my wife shows ranches, etc it's not as prone to tearing up tires or getting her stuck (the ranches have only occurred in this last year). I haven't checked depth but I have to believe they will go all of 50 and maybe 60k. My wife isn't hard on tires overall and stays off of the curbs, etc. Lots of highway miles.

I think the torque of the TDI, all wheel drive and being 5000lbs empty all contribute.

I believe the Nitto specs really tell the tale and so far.... https://www.nittotire.com/passenger-tires/nt421q-premier-all-season-crossover-suv-tire/

Having said ALL of that... the Discount Tire here has some good guys, I've done tons of commercial and personal business with them. We road forced every set to no avail until I found the TSB here and poof, no more vibration. If my memory is correct, my old E36 M3 required the same process as the TSB, maybe it's a German thing. I don't have vibration problems on my 2010 Yukon 2500 (7700lbs) which has aftermarket wheels/tires. My past trucks didn't vibrate. All were balanced at the same DT.

Just my experience and yes, we love our Touareg. I'd like to find an older TDI for me as well.
 
#264 ·
It is the design of the wheel hub. The heavier factory hub with the centering ring on the original T1 design does not suffer from this problem.

You can take off tires from the T3 and put on T1 without using the TSB and will not have the problem on the T1.

You can take off the tires from the T1 and put on the T3 and have the problem.

You can use 10 year old rims from a 2006 or the decade younger 2016 rims for the experiment. It does not matter.

The problem follows the vehicle, not the tires. The problem is the T3 does not properly self center the rims on the T3 non centering factory hub, unless you follow the procedure.

What is really sad is that it took nearly three years of complaints and several vehicles going back under lemon law, before VW came out with this TSB.

Sigh... It's a VW / German thing.
 
#265 ·
I am being told from the dealer that my CPO that has 66k km and is warrantied till November will take an entire day to do the TSB (2016 Touareg Highline).

And that it is not covered under VW warranty... So now I am trying to ask the dealer I purchased from (who knew about the issue and blamed it on the road I test-drove on) to cover the entire day the stealership wants to perform this TSB. I cannot return it to them for this as it is an 8 hour drive... and the only evidence I have is that the person who sold it to me agreed there was a steering shake on the hwy (and the techs said it was that particular highway causing the shake)...

I can’t believe this...

What can I do here, does the TSB actually take and entire day?
 
#266 ·
Go to a different local dealer and just pay to have your wheels re-balanced...... if you still have the SWS after that, they will more or less be forced to perform the TSB to address the issue.

In theory at least....
 
#268 ·
The repair will not take the entire day but they will probably need your car the entire day. Did they give you an estimate on costs?

CPO does not cover everything. There are certain “part IDs” that are covered. Depending how the service bulletin is coded will determine coverage. More than likely the bulletin is coded to the part ID for “wheels”. Wheels are not a covered component under CPO. This is why the dealer will not go out of their way to attempt the repair under warranty. Ultimately the claim will be denied and the dealer will end up eating the cost of the repair.

I am a warranty administrator for an Audi dealer, so I’m well versed in the ins and outs of warranty issues.

Jason


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#269 ·
Even if they do the TSB the vehicle owner is on the hook for the labor? The idiots who sold it to me obviously didn’t perform the service to TSB spec(VW dealer) because it’s nowhere in the notes when they replaced tires and brakes, do I have an argument here... 2 beautiful jettas, I spend more on a Touareg and now this BS, puts a sour taste in my mouth.
 
#271 ·
I assume you can change a wheel?

Yes?

Do you have or can you borrow a torque wrench?

Yes?

Do you know how to set it to 133 ft lbs?

Yes?

In that case . . .

Then remove the plastic lug caps, crack the lugs with the car on the ground, Jack it up and undo the rest of the lugs to remove the wheel.

Turn the hub so the retaining set screw is in the right place, insert the wheel locating pin, make sure there's no rust or dirt on the wheel to hub mating surfaces, put the wheel back on and then carefully tighten the lugs up in the correct star order whilst tightening to 133 ft lbs.

Do that to the front two wheels, take the car for a run at 70 to 80 mph and with a bit of luck the SWS will be sorted.

I'd still do the two rear wheels and don't forget to check after 50 miles that all the lugs are sill at 133 ft lbs.

Time taken, including a coffee break, tidying up, washing your hands and the test drive . . . . 1 hour.
 
#276 ·
Just do the TSB correctly!
 
#277 ·
A few things that were not mentioned are:
1- The jack that comes with the vehicle stinks...it's a PIA to use.
2- You can't just turn the hub so the retaining set screw is in the right place. You need to put the vehicle in Neutral to do this for each wheel, then put it back in park so it doesn't move on ya'.
3- You need to put the parking brake on when jacking up the front so the vehicle doesn't move causing the vehicle to fall off the jack.


I recently took my Summer wheel/tire setup out of storage to swap out the Winter setup. I had the indie shop who originally raodforce balanced the Summer setup reinstall them per the TSB. The Summer setup was perfect before I took them off and stored them for the Winter so I did not have them re-roadforce balance the setup before they installed them even though the tech. asked if I wanted them to. The dreaded SWS was back. Brought it back to the shop and had them re-roadforce balance a mount them again. The shop told me two of the wheels were off by 1/4-3/4oz. SWS is still there but worse now.


I'm going to have to remove each wheel and do the TSB re-mount myself to see if it helps. I think most shops say they followed the TSB but actually don't.


.
 
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#278 ·
yuyueyuyue said:
Yes, a lot easier to pull wheels to the center while tightening in star pattern.

After years of rust, loose washers can be easily pushed off center, tight washers can stuck half way on the bolt.
Click to expand...

Do the chrome plastic caps fit the replacement lug bolts? What about the wheel lock lug bolt, did you eliminate that one?
 
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#280 ·
I wound up buying 20 new lug bolts made by Febi Bilstein. 19MM heads so the plastic caps fit. I think it's the lip after the hex head that holds the plastic caps. I'm gonna' work on getting the last stripped locking bolt off today. The other three came off after some wrestling w/a 24" breaker bar. Not putting security bolts back on.


.
 
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