Club Touareg Forum banner
Cancel
Create thread New Garage Forums

2011+ Touareg Steering Wheel Shake - Please only post here

1 reading
Jump to Latest
881 - 900 of 1,242 Posts
#881 ·
I checked the pressures, they're spot on.

Already had new Michelin Latitudes the day after I got it (the first time it had the shakes). Dealer had to order eight of them and keep the best four. Said it was tough to get tires to come in under VW recommended RFV balance spec.

Car had no shakes before tires rotated.

Just a car with a problem by design that has to have everything JUST PERFECT to suppress a known resonance characteristic.

So we all get to screw around with it every time we get new tires or a service where wheels are rotated.

Next time I won't forget to request that the wheels not be touched.

Gonna waste another couple hours of my life tomorrow getting the wheels moved back to original position. Yay. I have nothing better to do.

Jason

p.s. - You're god dam ned right I'm bitter.
 
#882 ·
When I was dealing with similar issue after getting new tires, I was told that the road force per VW recommendations should be measured at under 15 lbs. Mine came out after meticulously performed RFB with 2, 11, 18 and 24 if my recollections are correct. Would you mind sharing what were you told and what were measured RFs for your vehicle? FYI: a few guys reported great success after inflating tires 3 psi above sticker and some said they did 5 psi above. Did you try to play with extra psi inflation?
 
#883 ·
I am sorry to rant but it amazes me to see that after 65 pages and 650 posts people still take a chance and let the dealers rotate the wheels on a perfectly shake free T3. We all know how incompetent VW dealers are. Every time I visit a dealer I make sure that they write in a big bold letter ***DO NOT ROTATE, INFLATE OR TOUCH THE WHEELS, PERIOD*** I also make sure that the message is also highlighted on a work order and a note attached to the steering wheel. I am sorry but I don't have extra time to dick around with re-balancing/re-torquing my wheel. Once again sorry for the rant.
 
#884 ·
CC,

Numbers from last balance report (successful) are:

Left Rear: 5.97lbs
Right Rear: 5.86lbs
Right Front: 5.81lbs
Left Front: 5.89lbs

These are cold numbers.

He ran them again after taking a long drive and doing them warmed up:

Left Rear: 6.14lbs
Right Rear: 6.38lbs
Right Front: 6.31lbs
Left Front: 6.08lbs

Jason
 
#885 ·
T-Reg,

I hear you. But it slipped my mind. 50 hours a week plus a 3 year old and a 9 month old will do that to you. I had already make a big note under the spare to not fill the Ad-Blue as I had already taken care of it.

As for dealer competency, I can't really say on this visit. This is the dealer that I dealt with for three months when the first vehicle almost got lemoned. They are well familiar and we talked on the phone daily. I felt confident that the had the routine down and probably had a big red flag on my account.

Jason
 
#886 · (Edited)
Nice! Your numbers are nearly perfect. After reading my own post, it came back to me that my final numbers at the dealership were 2, 6, 6 and 11. The first set of numbers was after their first attempt of RFB.
My dealer is very trustworthy and very customer-satisfaction-oriented. I DO plan to REMIND them to perform wheel rotation at next service appointment. What good a car is if simple tire rotation destroys the whole driving pattern? If it starts shaking, I’ll let my dealer (and VW) work on it until I will be satisfied.
 
#887 ·
jmcelroy said:
T-Reg,

I hear you. But it slipped my mind. 50 hours a week plus a 3 year old and a 9 month old will do that to you. I had already make a big note under the spare to not fill the Ad-Blue as I had already taken care of it.

As for dealer competency, I can't really say on this visit. This is the dealer that I dealt with for three months when the first vehicle almost got lemoned. They are well familiar and we talked on the phone daily. I felt confident that the had the routine down and probably had a big red flag on my account.

Jason
Click to expand...
Lol, I got three busting my chops, well, four if you count the wife 8-[.

Last time they've "adjusted" my tire pressure I spent 20 minutes re-adjusting it to have the fronts and rears match. It drives me up the wall that they can't get the simplest task of adjusting tires right, let alone balancing and torquing them :rolleyes:.

Don't waste your time at the dealer, take it to an indy shop and have them do a proper balancing and torquing in a star pattern with the wheels off the ground. Good Luck!
 
#890 ·
Got the car back from dealer yesterday. They put the wheels back in the original position and nothing else.

Shake is worse this morning.

Seems like more evidence that install procedure really matters.

Will take it down to my shop tonight and remove wheels, wire brush flange points where wheel meets hub, and torque in sequence properly.

I suspect that they're just starting all five to hold the wheel then zipping them down one at a time. Given the way the taper (more like Belleville shape, actually) on the lug bolts locates the wheel, bringing them up to torque incrementally would allow wheel to shift to perfect center on first round.

Will report results.

Have remained pretty calm over this. Not defeat, really. Just acceptance.

Jason
 
#891 ·
Don't forget to check the balance on each tire, too.
 
Save
Reply Quote Like Like
#892 ·
jmcelroy said:
Got the car back from dealer yesterday. They put the wheels back in the original position and nothing else.

Shake is worse this morning.

Seems like more evidence that install procedure really matters.

Will take it down to my shop tonight and remove wheels, wire brush flange points where wheel meets hub, and torque in sequence properly.

I suspect that they're just starting all five to hold the wheel then zipping them down one at a time. Given the way the taper (more like Belleville shape, actually) on the lug bolts locates the wheel, bringing them up to torque incrementally would allow wheel to shift to perfect center on first round.

Will report results.

Have remained pretty calm over this. Not defeat, really. Just acceptance.

Jason
Click to expand...
Yep, really looks like installation is your problem. It is sad that you have to do something yourself to get it right rather than a paid professional.
 
#893 ·
fincher said:
Don't forget to check the balance on each tire, too.
Click to expand...
I don't have that capability. My workshop is a metal fabrication and engine buidling shop. I hang balance my motorcycle wheels and it works fine ;-)

Given that all they did was change position and reinstall, the only way balance could have changed is if weights fell off which seems relatively unlikely.

If proper installation by me doesn't solve it, back it goes for the whole RFV and alignment sequence.

Jason
 
#894 ·
I'm infrequently in the forum recently, and sorry to see this thread rear it's ugly head.

I made the decision that the hour plus it takes to personally change my wheels by hand is worth it. No one to blame but myself if the shake comes back.

I'll be switching from my winter set-up to back to summer hopefully this weekend.
I marked all the wheel positions before I put them away.

I'll be mounting them using the procedure I last used, detailed here:
http://www.clubtouareg.com/forums/f.../fixed-steering-wheel-shake-gone-on-my-2013-touareg-t3-81972-23.html#post566089

In addition to the torquing it involves cleaning. Ridiculous and should be unnecessary, but maybe helps and definitely give piece of mind.

I do this for the TDI only.
I let the tire shop change out the DW Sport since the tires need to be physically swapped on the same rims.
 
#895 ·
I just had my 10000 mile service done and had not noticed any issues. In the first few thousand miles I did have some bad shaking and took it to the dealer and got some mixed results so I took it to an independent repair shop with a road force balancing system. The dealer I do business with also has a road force machine. The independent shop noticed some minor issues with the balancing job done by the dealership and corrected those. They also brought to my attention that only the front wheels had been balanced by the dealer when I brought it to them for service. Lastly the alignment was out of spec on all four corners. The car was delivered to me that way. Since having this work done I have only had some minor issues from time to time related to drastic temperature shifts or due to the car sitting for a few days. If the rear tires had not been properly balanced and the alignment fixed I suspect that I would be bringing up the same set of problems after the tires had been rotated after this last service.
 
#896 ·
So I remounted my wheels in the shop last night.

First thing I found was that the break-away torque (force needed to start rotation, often much higher than originally set torque) on the lugs was 60 to 80 ft-lbs at most! Terrifying. I am not trusting my family to someone else installing wheels again. There was a wide variation of force needed to remove them. I'm fairly certain they were just zipped on with a gun by feel.

I wire brushed (by hand, not a fan of running power tools against soft metals to clean) the hub and wheel flange faces. This was really just to be thorough. There was no build up of note and this was not a contributor.

I mounted each wheel, installed the lugs by hand and rotated the wheel a bit to make sure everything was seated.

Torqued them in three steps using the standard pattern for a five-bolt concentric. . . every other one around the circle. Took them to 133ft-lbs.

When I was done working in the shop (getting my 1958 Harley panhead ready for spring duty, made a new ignition setup and associated mounting bracketry) I was eager to drive home and test for shake.

I am now firmly convinced: This was caused by installation technique. The car drives completey differently. In addition to the shake being gone, the steering feel is much more quiet and clean at other speeds too. No "noise" in the wheel. Dead still.

Previously, even when it wasn't shaking, the back seat would be squeaking and other things in the car would buzz at times.

To make a long story longer (as a long time friend and mentor always says) . . .

I have rebuilt, repaired, and reengineered mating assemblies for everything from go-carts to motorcycles to old cars to soap-box racers. In every case where the concentricity of two mated parts is important, there is a fool-proof (or functional at least) locating feature to assure alignment. This is usually done with pins & recesses, tapers, or shoulder features.

All the Touareg has is the two pieces of spring steel near the hub center and the Belleville washers on the lug bolts. The former are not close fitting enough to the wheel to be of use, allowing easily an 1/8" movement off center when the lugs aren't in place. Where lugs are locating device (with Belleville or taper form), the feature is machined concentric with the bolt as one piece. In the case of the Toureg, these features float on the main bolt. I have seen this constuction before, but where the floating part is a precise slip fit on the fastener. The Touareg bolts have plenty of play between the washer and bolt, making them less effective at centering the wheel.

So I'm convinced now (until further contradictory evidence is observed) that the wheels were not mounted perfectly concentrically to the hubs leading to run-out. You can RF balance until the cows come home, but if the wheels are not concentric to the hub, you've wasted your time.

I drive this car almost every day on the highway. If this comes back, I'll report it here.

Thanks for listening.

Jason
 
#898 ·
Is this a wheel design problem? would the hubs on the Touareg be the same as on the porsche? For example, on my VW jetta Mk4, the hubs , the centre round part indexes tightly into the wheel keeping it concentric. Its so tight that after winter once the bolts are removed the wheel has to be kicked hard before it'll come off. All due to the little corrosion that forms in there over the winter months. Is this problem only on the T3's? Hard to believe it's a silly engineering problem like this.

jmcelroy said:
I mounted each wheel, installed the lugs by hand and rotated the wheel a bit to make sure everything was seated.

Torqued them in three steps using the standard pattern for a five-bolt concentric. . . every other one around the circle. Took them to 133ft-lbs.

I am now firmly convinced: This was caused by installation technique. The car drives completey differently. In addition to the shake being gone, the steering feel is much more quiet and clean at other speeds too. No "noise" in the wheel. Dead still.

I have rebuilt, repaired, and reengineered mating assemblies for everything from go-carts to motorcycles to old cars to soap-box racers. In every case where the concentricity of two mated parts is important, there is a fool-proof (or functional at least) locating feature to assure alignment. This is usually done with pins & recesses, tapers, or shoulder features.

All the Touareg has is the two pieces of spring steel near the hub center and the Belleville washers on the lug bolts. The former are not close fitting enough to the wheel to be of use, allowing easily an 1/8" movement off center when the lugs aren't in place. Where lugs are locating device (with Belleville or taper form), the feature is machined concentric with the bolt as one piece. In the case of the Toureg, these features float on the main bolt. I have seen this constuction before, but where the floating part is a precise slip fit on the fastener. The Touareg bolts have plenty of play between the washer and bolt, making them less effective at centering the wheel.

So I'm convinced now (until further contradictory evidence is observed) that the wheels were not mounted perfectly concentrically to the hubs leading to run-out. You can RF balance until the cows come home, but if the wheels are not concentric to the hub, you've wasted your time.
Click to expand...
 
#899 ·
ratbag said:
Is this a wheel design problem? would the hubs on the Touareg be the same as on the porsche?...
Click to expand...
My 2013 991 has the same wheel bolt washer design as my 2011 TDI. I've yet to see any eccentric wheel mounting probs reported on the Porsche boards, or even any significant vibration issues not associated with braking. Also, is this really a Belleville washer, aka a coned-disc spring? The washer appears to be too long to provide the spring effect associated with a Belleville. Rather, as Mr. ratbag suggests, I believe that the T3 washer design actually aids in assuring a concentric wheel mounting. OTOH, if the wheel were mounted eccentrically, it would surely cause balancing havoc.

I keep coming back to blaming the vibration problem to a system (wheel, shaft, bushing, geometry, etc, etc) stability issue. Any component that isn't nearly perfect in balance and alignment can cause this marginally stable system to oscillate. And, bigger and heavier wheel/tire combinations certainly make correct balancing and torquing (not twerking) essential.

Spyder
 
#900 ·
Spyder,

You make a good point about the washer type. I referred to it as a Belleville because it shares it's hemispherical shape, but it does NOT act as a spring like a true one does.

The T3 design would better aid alignment if the hemisperical washer was not such a loose fit on the bolt.

The steel collar on the hub that is supposed to engage the wheel is not a close enough fit to the wheel to ensure perfect alignment.

I am in complete agreement with you over the design. I feel that the steering and front suspension systems have an inherent harmonic problem. This could be due to masses or geometry of the components, or who knows what. Consequently, one has to go to great lengths to get everything JUST PERFECT in an attempt to suppress this characteristic.

I consider it an engineering failure. It's a damned shame VW won't just fess to it and do right by their customers.

Jason

btw - I celebrated too early. Had the shakes twice this morning, although significantly more subtle than earlier this week. Will now mess with tire pressures to see what that gets me.
 
881 - 900 of 1,242 Posts
About this Discussion
1.2K Replies
176 Participants
Last post:
Sciroccodriver
Club Touareg Forum
posts
784K
members
105K
Since
2003
Club Touareg Forum is a forum community dedicated to Volkswagen Touareg owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about VW Touareg Sport Utility Vehicles and more!
Full Forum Listing
Explore Our Forums
General Maintenance & Repair Australia & New Zealand Brakes, Steering, Suspension, Wheels and Tires Mobile Electronics and In Car Entertainment General Touareg Discussions