[n54335i02121997]

Solved -- Bent wheel. Could not tell until I recorded it while spinning the wheel by hand. Inner side is very much out of round. Borrowed a wheel off a friend, drove smooth as butter. Dropping off at an alloy wheel repair shop on Monday.

Hello all. I recently went full bolt on, MHD stage 2+. Put the last part on literally 3 or 4 days ago. Pretty great. UNFORTUNATELY, I can't enjoy it. I went 251,000 miles with NO steering wobble or weird suspension issues, but it is here.

I first noticed the steering wobble about a couple days after I replaced a power steering pressure line. I had just made a long road trip back home, everything was A-OK. The very next day after getting home, it was dark and rainy, and for some reason my typically very responsible BIL placed the Christmas tree in my parking spot. I backed over it, ripped my power steering pressure line off the bracket (the mounts were dry rotted to hell), and about 30 miles later started spraying fluid.. was dragging on the ground. I drove it home about 5 miles with no issues besides heavy steering... maybe a mistake. I don't know.

Replaced the line, and then a couple weeks later I noticed that my steering wheel is wobbly over 60mph or so. So, I remembered before my trip around Christmas that a tire shop (went to get my wheels balanced) told me that my front tires were cupped. I assumed that was the issue. I went and got the tires replaced, but unfortunately no difference. I went and got my wheels aligned. They were really badly off. No fix.

Control/thrust arm bushings all look good.

My front struts have about 100,000 miles on them (OEM). I feel like the ride quality is not very good, so maybe the dampeners are on the way out.

The tie rod ball joints are visually in good shape, although I've never replaced them and I'm of course at 251,000. I tried pushing the tires at 3/9 and 12/6 but didn't seem like there was any play. Perhaps I wasn't pushing hard enough? but I did use a bit of force.

There is a pop/clunk type noise whenever I'm turning the wheel, or whenever I'm taking off in 1st gear or switching to reverse and begin backing up. Maybe related, maybe not. Never did this before the wobble. I assume sway bar end links will not cause steering wobble.

Engine mounts are replaced as of about 20,000 miles ago with Lemforder parts.

But yeah, it's intermittent, but mostly wobbly. Sometimes it smooths out for a couple miles, then it comes back. Rear tires were just balanced a few thousand miles ago.

I did a quick inspection on my wheels, don't look bent at all.

Car isn't really vibrating, just the steering wheel wobbles and I feel every bump in the road.

I'm going to try to take it to my shop here soon, but would like to get a list of things to inspect before rearrange my day to get to my shop which about 45 minutes away from me, 30+ miles, and it's a pain in the ass to get time off work to go down there and wait.

Again, this seemingly happened after I drove with a bad PS leak for about 5 miles. There's a little bit of glitter in the PS fluid (chf11s), but I do have a whole other container of CHF11s if a flush may be necessary. Could be a coincidence, could be correlated. Not too sure.

Anyway, I am absolutely willing to do some inspecting if anyone can offer some insight. I finally hit my goal of FBO + tune, but I'm absolutely not going to rip that thing around some back roads until this is resolved.

unrelated, but possibly related. when I got my car back from the initial alignment, the steering wheel was shifted bad to the left. I went and got it corrected. steering wheel is much straighter now, but the toe on the front two tires were out to the right on both sides. I noticed the steering wheel was cocked to the left about 30 seconds after leaving the shop, so maybe the kid doing the alignment just messed up.

Could bad struts maybe cause this? Or am I looking at a steering rack issue.

I have 252,000 miles and I have never had any sort of issue like this. Thank you SO much! Money isn't really an issue (to an extent, because I plan on keeping this car for a very long time as I do not want a $500+/mo car payment. I will buy another engine before I buy a new car. I love my manual, has just the right amount of comforts without being overwhelming, and chassis is in amazing shape), but I much prefer to do work myself.

[e90yyc]

I think I’m dealing with something similar (minus the PS leak).

I am quite confident that the timing of your issue surfacing is a coincidence and has nothing to do with the PS leak. I’m more than open to being wrong here, but if anything was damaged in the course of you driving with a PS fluid leak, it would be the pump and not the rack. Unlike the pump, the rack doesn’t depend on PS fluid for lubrication—at least not in a critical way (no spinning parts). If you were to delete your pump/convert to manual steering, you’d want some fluid in there to prevent corrosion etc, but I just don’t see how driving a few miles without fluid would destroy your rack.

Unless… your PS began to self destruct and started spewing chunks of metal into the fluid, but still… I’d think that would be more likely to result in a leak and not the issue you describe.

Did the system run completely dry?

Might be worth looking at strut mounts (and struts themselves). Could be worth ruling out your rack. I’d start by assessing lash on center. Simply turning the wheel back and forth very slightly and ensuring there’s a corresponding movement of the wheels. If it seems like there’s excessive play, try rotating your steering wheel 180° and then check again. Due to dynamic camber it might be hard to compare, but if your rack is badly worn in the on-center position, I’d think you’d notice a difference when moving the wheel with the pinion sitting elsewhere on the rack (somewhere with significantly less wear).

I’m not sure what the best diagnostic process is for strut mounts, but I do think that what you’re describing does sound like it could be bad mounts.

[n54335i02121997]

Originally Posted by e90yyc

I think I’m dealing with something similar (minus the PS leak).

I am quite confident that the timing of your issue surfacing is a coincidence and has nothing to do with the PS leak. I’m more than open to being wrong here, but if anything was damaged in the course of you driving with a PS fluid leak, it would be the pump and not the rack. Unlike the pump, the rack doesn’t depend on PS fluid for lubrication—at least not in a critical way (no spinning parts). If you were to delete your pump/convert to manual steering, you’d want some fluid in there to prevent corrosion etc, but I just don’t see how driving a few miles without fluid would destroy your rack.

Unless… your PS began to self destruct and started spewing chunks of metal into the fluid, but still… I’d think that would be more likely to result in a leak and not the issue you describe.

Did the system run completely dry?

Might be worth looking at strut mounts (and struts themselves). Could be worth ruling out your rack. I’d start by assessing lash on center. Simply turning the wheel back and forth very slightly and ensuring there’s a corresponding movement of the wheels. If it seems like there’s excessive play, try rotating your steering wheel 180° and then check again. Due to dynamic camber it might be hard to compare, but if your rack is badly worn in the on-center position, I’d think you’d notice a difference when moving the wheel with the pinion sitting elsewhere on the rack (somewhere with significantly less wear).

I’m not sure what the best diagnostic process is for strut mounts, but I do think that what you’re describing does sound like it could be bad mounts.

Thanks for the response. System was ran very close to dry. Took about 80% of the CHF11s bottle to fill it back up (after bleeding). There is some glitter which is to be expected, but you're correct, after 1000+ miles I'm sure if something catastrophic were to happen, that would have already occurred.

As far as strut mounts go, these were actually replaced not too long ago. I think I did them last spring. Lemforder as well.

Tomorrow I can check what you mentioned about turning the wheel and inspecting the tires. That will be quick and easy to inspect and rule out the most costly (and quite frankly a pretty big pain) issue. Alldata shows 4 labor hours, but without a lift, re-bleeding, alignment, etc would make it rather unpleasant.

The popping/clunk noise I mentioned is very clearly coming from the front corners of the car, and I seem to notice it on the passenger side.

__________

So I did find you in an old thread from 2023 with some good tips. https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2036485. I think I will also inspect rotors to ensure no catching there, steering shaft pinch bolt, calipers, and ESPECIALLY the steering column link on page 2 near the bottom. Steering column appears to be pretty reasonably priced buying used. if that's the issue, surely the seller would be willing to test the link and make sure it's OK before I purchase.


ruling out wheels as of now. My original 189's were so horrifically bent up but never caused any sort of steering wheel wobble. My 193's aren't in perfect shape but they were smooth as hell up until recently, and I haven't hit any potholes, objects in the road, etc. Visual inspection shows them to be free from bends

[n54335i02121997]

Originally Posted by e90yyc

I think I’m dealing with something similar (minus the PS leak).

I am quite confident that the timing of your issue surfacing is a coincidence and has nothing to do with the PS leak. I’m more than open to being wrong here, but if anything was damaged in the course of you driving with a PS fluid leak, it would be the pump and not the rack. Unlike the pump, the rack doesn’t depend on PS fluid for lubrication—at least not in a critical way (no spinning parts). If you were to delete your pump/convert to manual steering, you’d want some fluid in there to prevent corrosion etc, but I just don’t see how driving a few miles without fluid would destroy your rack.

Unless… your PS began to self destruct and started spewing chunks of metal into the fluid, but still… I’d think that would be more likely to result in a leak and not the issue you describe.

Did the system run completely dry?

Might be worth looking at strut mounts (and struts themselves). Could be worth ruling out your rack. I’d start by assessing lash on center. Simply turning the wheel back and forth very slightly and ensuring there’s a corresponding movement of the wheels. If it seems like there’s excessive play, try rotating your steering wheel 180° and then check again. Due to dynamic camber it might be hard to compare, but if your rack is badly worn in the on-center position, I’d think you’d notice a difference when moving the wheel with the pinion sitting elsewhere on the rack (somewhere with significantly less wear).

I’m not sure what the best diagnostic process is for strut mounts, but I do think that what you’re describing does sound like it could be bad mounts.

So since I always like to follow up whenever I figure things out... just due to spending a lot of time on forums for my many vehicles throughout the years and being annoyed when someone just says "solved" and refuses to elaborate..

It WAS a bent wheel. It was near impossible to see just with a visual inspection. Even when I took the wheel off the car it was hard to tell. But I set up a camera on both front tires from the underside. Drivers side was very much out of round.

Went to a friend's house and he's letting me borrow one of his wheels on his non-drivable project. Took it up to 70mph. Smooth as butter.

So yes... in my case it was absolutely a bent wheel, however, I don't really remember hitting anything. Maybe it was when I drove over that Christmas tree in the yard or something.

Thanks again.

[e90yyc]

Thank you for closing the loop on this. I agree—it’s always super annoying when there’s a thread where the OP never returned to share the solution, haha…

Thanks again and I’m very glad to hear it’s been solved!!!