I have my 10k mile service this Saturday. The steering wheel shake will be among the items I discuss with them.

It's funny that your dealer thought it had something to do with the tires/wheels. It feels more like an infrequent power steering shutter at slow speeds only while turning. I will also call the care team. Thanks for the reminder to do so...

fwiw: I do have to say that the shutter is so minor for me, that it's hard for me to get too worked up over it - regardless that it was a $60k vehicle a few short months ago.

 

jpsjr70,

I don't think that mine has this, but maybe I don't know???

Does it do this at high speeds or low speed?

The issue that BlazinPond is talking about, it sounds like I have, but I don't know that I would call it steering wheel shake. I'd call it more like the feeling that you get from a 4WD / AWD when it's "fighting" the front tires in a turn.

For the record, I had Pirellis as my OEM's, and they never did any kind of shaking at any speed or turning. I've recently changed to Toyo CUV's, and that was the first time that I ever felt the tires feeding back into the steering wheel. I just attributed that to the aggressiveness of the Toyo's compared to the Pirellis.

Maybe not????

 

Cadman_ks, funny that's what I thought at first but that's not the case. The issue happens when I reach 50-55 mph or higher. Next time you take it on the highway and take it to 80 mph, watch the wheel really shake side to side. You will also see your mpg go down slightly. It's not good.

 

Sorry jpsjr70
Yours is a different issue than the other "wheel shakes" of many recent threads.

I do exceed 80 often on long boring straightaways. I notice no wheel shaking up through 100mph to be honest.

 

Hi everyone, well I'm here to tell you that I'm asking those owners with the steering wheel shake to contact VWofA and complain about your issue. I have spoken to VW Executive Care Team about this issue and I have been told that I'm the first one to have this complaint? What a bunch of crap, I've read all the feedback about the issue on this forum and other forums and I know I can't be the only one with this issue. According to VW, unless we as owners and the dealers we have our Touareg's serviced at complain about it, VW will not start a TSB. I have done the following and still have the issue:

-Four Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season tires, Road Forced Balenced multiple times, new tires were also replaced again because dealer thought it maybe a tire issue.
-Full alignment x 2, All four!
-Brake Pads and Rotors replaced

My Touareg has 44,000 miles and I really love my SUV! This is my third one and I swear by them, but this issue is really pissing me off! For those of you that have had or still has this issue, please call VW Touareg Care Team at (877) 389-4928. Remember, we are the only vehicle in the VW lineup that has a Care Team, some how when we purchased our suv's we must have paid extra for this service. I feel if we complain enough and show numbers we can make a difference.
Please don't flame me for this post, I'm just trying to make a difference, hopefully VW is listening.......

Thanks

Joe

Can I ask you a question. Does your steering wheel shake at times and then stop shaking at times too? I have aftermarket wheels and had them road forced twice. They came out fully balanced correctly. I was stumped on this. This occurs for highway travel for me.

I'm glad you brought this up as I will call them. I won't mention about having aftermarket wheels though.

 

I had a bit of wheel shake an alignment and road force balance corrected it. Sometimes there's a minor bit of shake but I attribute that to road conditions.

 

I've got wheel shake around 75MPH, but for some reason it stops after having driven for 10-20minutes at that speed. Not sure what to make of it but I intend to bring this up at my next service.

 

Don't wait until service. Take action now.

There are issues with some Touaregs and not others, but those owners that do have issues should be jumping all over their dealers and VWoA.

There are problems worldwide and VW needs to get a grip on this issue.

It is typical of them to say "Never heard of THAT before, sir/madam".

VW KNOWS . . . enough cars have been rejected already!

VW just wants to keep telling people "It is a charateristic of the car, sir/madam" and hope the customer is stupid enough to go away.

Don't let VW get away with it.

 

I had a bit of wheel shake an alignment and road force balance corrected it. Sometimes there's a minor bit of shake but I attribute that to road conditions.

Do you have after market wheels? I had both done.

 

Don't wait until service. Take action now.

There are issues with some Touaregs and not others, but those owners that do have issues should be jumping all over their dealers and VWoA.

There are problems worldwide and VW needs to get a grip on this issue.

It is typical of them to say "Never heard of THAT before, sir/madam".

VW KNOWS . . . enough cars have been rejected already!

VW just wants to keep telling people "It is a charateristic of the car, sir/madam" and hope the customer is stupid enough to go away.

Don't let VW get away with it.

I called VW and let them know about the issue. They wanted me to schedule an appt and have the service tech drive in the car to show the problem. Once that is done they can have a VW advisor on the issue. I wonder what VW will do next. The customer care advisor said she personally never heard of the issue.

 

The customer care advisor said she personally never heard of the issue.

What utter bollocks!

 

No i've go the stock Pikes peak.

 

Road force balancing may help some, but you can still have a out of balance tire.....

Looks at the wheel weights .. if yoiu see more than 3 ounces of lead weight used in order to balance the wheel/tire... it wasn't done correctly...

If you run larger wheels the more noticable vibrations feel.. having even one wheel off can drive you nuts..

I have aftermarket 20's on my ride and "decent" tires.. nothing over the top... i balance them every 5000 miles and watch Discount tire do it correctly, or i'll reject them.. I will make them bust the bead on the tire and spin the tire on the rim until its correct.. it makes a WORLD of difference..
In fact currently not one of my wheels has more than 1 ounce of lead used to balance them.. it takes TIME to balance them like this and most places won't do it correctly...

100 mph and no shake... heck at any speed i have no shake and i drive my Treg all over the south west... (well when i'm home)

My point being don;t belive the whole road force BS balancing...its BS.

 

Road force balancing may help some, but you can still have a out of balance tire.....

I had my last set of tires road balanced for the first time. They seem to be fine, but time will tell if it did any good.

However, you said this:

...

I have aftermarket 20's on my ride and "decent" tires.. nothing over the top... i balance them every 5000 miles and watch Discount tire do it correctly, or i'll reject them.. I will make them bust the bead on the tire and spin the tire on the rim until its correct..

As I understand road force balancing, this would totally negate the whole road balance thing wouldn't it? I thought that the reason for road balancing was to get the outside of the tire at the most concentric spot with the inside of the rim?

It's possible that I don't understand what they do, but it would seem that rotating it, could throw off the concentricity.

With that being said, I do actually find it hard to believe that modern day tires would be that far out of concentricity, but I'm definitely not a tire expert. When you read the information on the Hunter web site, it almost comes across like snake oil, IMHO...

 

My Touareg is riding on my 20" Pikes Peak and everything is stock except for the new Pirelli tires I just put on.

 

Actually, you may well be right.

I may have maligned the girl.

What do women know about cars anyway?

And in the office they only talk about their men, their clothes, their hair and their make-up.

 

Same issue - just returned from 3rd resolution attempt 7/23/12

Just had my 2012 Touareg returned from another week at the dealer on this steering wheel vibration/oscillation issue. This is the 3rd tour of extended testing at the dealer. This last time a VW QTM supposedly involved. Previously, re-balance and alignment and subsequently switched off the stock Pirelli's to Michelins with new rims. No resolution. I own a LUX model and was given an Executive this past weekend for an extended 800 mile trip. Same problem in this model and admission that others they have tested do the same. My return resulted in "must be the nature of the beast"! and no resolution. If anyone comes across the problem causing this issue or finds a resolution most interested in having it passed along. Next step is to investigate 3rd party services and possible lemon law resolution. Accumulated nearly 3 weeks of dealership service time.

 

Stop wasting any more time on it - it's just another car and a complete lemon.

Some cars like yours are Rampant Rabbits but many others are not so it is not "a characteristic of the car".

The sooner VW ends up with a ever growing compound of Lemons, the better since they might actually then find a fix.

 

I too am impressed with the loyalty to problematic cars... And whatever happened to the customer is always right? Especially when they actually are right?
I would say you should move on and do it soon, life is too short to serve the machines that were built to serve us

 

Ditto. I do like VW but my Passat B6 Sport was a dud. Electrical issues constantly. Had the car 10 months and then bought my T1 V8. The Passat really sucked. The T1 was nearly flawless.

 

Hey everyone, just a quick update. I had a flat tire a week ago and go two new tires put on front. They put them on the front, and just did a regular balance. Well, what do you know i had some major steering shake and the vehicle just didn't drive right. Brought it back and they did the Road force balance. All is well. Like night and day. If anyone has a shake and hasn't tried a proper road force balance, try it it will most likely fix it.

 

Hey everyone, just a quick update. I had a flat tire a week ago and go two new tires put on front. They put them on the front, and just did a regular balance. Well, what do you know i had some major steering shake and the vehicle just didn't drive right. Brought it back and they did the Road force balance. All is well. Like night and day. If anyone has a shake and hasn't tried a proper road force balance, try it it will most likely fix it.

Deepest tread should really go to the rear to avoid potential oversteer.

Are your rear tyres within 3mm of the new front tyres and are the new front tyres the same make/model/size as those on the rear? They should be.

 

A Road Force Balance using a Hunter GSP9700 is the BEST way to ensure that any tire is properly balanced.

All tires are slightly elliptical (i.e. out-of-round) when manufactured. Unless you have brand new tires "trued" before they are run on the ground on the vehicle (like we do on race cars) then the ellipse will accentuate the natural out-of-balance state.

The Hunter Road Force Balancer WILL cure the problem. Just search the Hunter website for a local tire shop that has the Hunter GPS9700 equipment and take your Treg in for a four-tire re-balance using the Hunter equipment.

Max cost is about $100.

You will wonder why you didn't have the service done sooner!

 

I agree and not an ad for sure...I've had the same experience. Its all the difference in the world.

I find the Treg exceptionally sensitive to wheel balance and alignment, so spare no expense and get it done on the best equipment

 

This ad brought to you by the caring folks at Hunter.

No ad at all. I have no affiliation with Hunter or any tire shop. Just my personal experience gleaned from balancing thousands of road tires and race tires over the years.

I'm sure other manufacturers produce a road force balancer similar to the Hunter equipment - I've simply never encountered one.

BTW, Hunter is THE leading tire balancing equipment manufacturer in the WORLD. Just ask your local tire shop. It's likely they will agree.

 

Has anyone others road forced and this cleared up the issue. I am just trying to see because mine have been road forced, but I do have aftermarket wheels that are hub centric. If people have stock wheels and the issue exists, I would still push to get this problem resolved. I don't know how the factory wheels, feel because I never drove the car with the factory wheels.

 

My 2009 T2 3.6L FSI with steel suspension is running the OEM VW 19" Terra wheels.

My new Continental ExtremeContact DWS tires, size 275/45ZR19, were all road force balanced on a Hunter GSP9700 Road Force Balance machine.

All four wheels achieved the desired 0/0 (zero/zero) balance result.

All four tires roll ABSOLUTELY smooth at ALL road speeds up to the speed-limited 155 MPH.

So, let's hope this answers the road force balance question, yes?

Simply put, a road force balance of ALL FOUR TIRES will achieve the closest-to-perfect balance result.

Try it, you likely will agree.

 

My 2009 T2 3.6L FSI with steel suspension is running the OEM VW 19" Terra wheels.

My new Continental ExtremeContact DWS tires, size 275/45ZR19, were all road force balanced on a Hunter GSP9700 Road Force Balance machine.

All four wheels achieved the desired 0/0 (zero/zero) balance result.

All four tires roll ABSOLUTELY smooth at ALL road speeds up to the speed-limited 155 MPH.

So, let's hope this answers the road force balance question, yes?

Simply put, a road force balance of ALL FOUR TIRES will achieve the closest-to-perfect balance result.

Try it, you likely will agree.

I had mine road forced twice. I'm going to check if the machine is Hunter. I thought this issue was for Touareg for 2011-2012 years that this was occurring?

 

Tires is tires is tires is tires. A particular model year running out-of-balance tires matters not.

If the steering shimmy/shake on 2011-12 Treg is caused by out-of-balance tires, which some are suggesting in this thread it is, then a road force balance applied to all four wheels is the best way to eliminate out-of-balance tires as the root cause of the problem.

That is the point I attempt to make here.

Also, some tire shops will tell you they road force balance tires (like the goons at Discount Tire) when in fact they are NOT road force balancing the tire. Some tire shops use computerized spin balancers and try to convince their customers they are actually road force balancing a tire.

I suggest going out on the tire shop floor and putting your eyeballs on the tire balancing equipment that your tire shop is using to "road force" balance your tires. It's the best way to confirm what you are asking for - and paying for.

 

I was surprised you didn't post the following Road Force balancer information. It is really a ...

Road Force Touch GSP9700 - The World's #1 Diagnostic Balancer

There is both a video describing the procedure and dealer locator.

It also makes one wonder why VW assembly plants or VW preparation stations (dealers for example) don't verify alignment before delivery, for as much customer dissatisfaction, angst and unnecessary wasted tire dollars undetected, it can cost?