Need help diagnosing steering wheel shake

I have a ~50k mile 2008 SpecB that has intermittent (but most of the time) steering wheel shake/judder and drifting pulling to the right.

 

- Starts around 60mph and remains up to 80mph+ and then all the way to a stop.

- The shake/judder is at times light to moderate, on rare occasion very pronounced

- Braking does not influence the shaking in any meaningful way

- Appears to shake in unison with the rotation of the front wheels

- Does not cause any other part of the car to shake (as far as I can tell)

- The shaking and puling to the right happens on smooth and bumpy roads

- Happens on and off throttle

 

All of the installs/services below have been done within 500 miles of each other. So it's exceedingly hard to tell which if any are causing this issue.

 

I've had the following services done at a Subaru dealer PRIOR to the shaking:

- 1x steering alignment

- 1x Mounting and balance of the wheels/tires (when I got new tires)

 

I've installed the following per the FSM and or vendor install guides PRIOR to me noticing the shaking in the steering wheel:

- STI solid steering u-joint

- Whiteline Steering Rack Bushings

- Group N Engine, Transmission Mounts and Pitch Stop

- Whiteline Sway Bars and Kartboy Endlinks

 

I've had the following service done at a Subaru dealer AFTER in an attempt to resolve the shaking:

- 1x Mounting and balance of the wheels/tires (my butt dyno tells me this seemed to make the shaking worse, not better)

 

Does anyone have any thoughts as to what above, or anything other than what I listed I should look into to help narrow down the culprit.

 

I expected the mods above to add some NVH in an effort to tightening up the steering and handling. I didn't expect any of them to cause steering issues.

 

My next steps:

- Swap the wheels front to back to see if that remedies the shaking

- Check the wheels bearings

- Go back over all the nuts and bolts from the above installs to make sure they still are torqued to spec

- Install a Cusco Steering Rack Brace (I already have this, not sure if will help)

Edited September 10, 2021 by busyychild

did you check wheel bearing?

did you check wheel bearing?

 

Not yet. It is sitting at the dealership getting looked at now. Surprise, the tech cannot reproduce the issue and hasn't found anything on initial inspection. So I will most likely do a ride along tomorrow with them so I can reproduce the issue.

Outer tie rod end(s) would be my first guess

Outer tie rod end(s) would be my first guess

 

 

Would a tie rod failure be likely on 13 year old car with 50k miles?

OEM Tires?

OEM Tires?

 

235/45R17 General G-MAX RS on 2013 WRX 15 Spoke Wheels

I heard the upper axle joints can cause this as well

One recent development, intermittently the car will drift/pull to the right on straight roads, generally at higher speeds.

 

After a 20 minute drive (where the shaking is present) I've checked the brakes/wheels to see if either are overheating from sticking. No one was hotter than the others.

 

I am going to put it up on a lift tomorrow and systematically swap the rear wheels one by one to the fronts to see if that eliminates the shakes/drifting. I will also check to see if it's the bearings (rock the wheel from 12:00 to 6:00).

Edited August 28, 2021 by busyychild

Checked for play in the wheel bearing and CVs, none present that I could feel.

 

Swapped front and rear tires, seemed to make a difference.

 

One of the wheels that I moved from the front to rear has wheel weights stacked on top of each other. This is after the second wheel balance. I suspect this is part of the problem.

 

I've dropped it off at a dealer to have them redo that wheel and check the alignment.

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by busyychild

One of the previous front/now rear tires has wheel weights stacked on top of each other.

 

Didn't know you could do that... LOL

Do You have Subaru half shafts?

Do You have Subaru half shafts?

 

As in do I have OEM CV Axels? Everything in the drivetrain is OEM/stock with around ~50k miles.

I received the car back from the dealer. All four tires we rebalanced (no more stacked weights) and the alignment was redone (2nd time now). They went over the suspension and steering components again and did not find anything they believe to cause the steering wheel shaking.

 

The drifting/pulling to the right has stopped but the shaking still persists.

 

The alignment was brought into near spec, with right rear camber being the only great offender.

 

Looking at the result below, is there anything I should be concerned with or should address with either aftermarket parts or another shop that could get the alignment closer to spec? This is a daily driver and I am not planning to change the stock suspension any further.

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by busyychild

Have someone drive next to you on the highway and see if the wheels are bouncing. It could possibly be struts. Even though only 50K on them, they still could be bad and I've seen that be the absolute issue on a couple of other vehicles before, one of them with virtually new struts.

I had similar issues with General tires in the past. I was on 235/40 vice your 235/45 though. Do you by any chance store the car/tires for a prolong period of time? I was instructed to get the tires remounted and if that didn't fix it I would have to purchase four new tires. In my case though I was already pass the warranty period.

 

Hopes this helps.

parts with zero miles can fail. I'd suspect tie rod ends, inner and outer, could be ball joint too.

 

in actuality, these cars are only "good" for 5 years 60k. since you're at 13 years and 50k, plenty of items can be at end of life.

I believe my car has this very same issue. Shaking around 60 all the way up to 80. Not always.

 

 

 

I have several sets of wheels and tires. Shaking is present with all and any set I have. Including new Falcon Azenis RT660 that got balanced twice. Better with some sets, worse with others.

 

 

 

Three different services could not find any issues with it. Suspension components are tight. I can't detect any slop in steering even though I have the original OEM rack. I have GT Spec tie rods and ball joints, no play in them - again, checked several times.

 

 

 

I know some members here reported shaking being fixed by STI U-joint but I could never find a proper explanation how that may be causing the issue with no detectable slop in steering. I bought the STI U-joint but didn't install it yet.

 

 

My shocks are Bilstein HDs which admittedly are now quite a few years old but I did not feel them being non functional. The shaking is only present in front.

 

 

I suspected brake hoses which are also original still. Some confirmation for that theory was that if I brake real hard then the shaking *most of the time* disappears for some period of time. I did check the temperature on rotors though and didn't find them any different. Brake pad wear is normal. Btw I have new OEM calipers on all 4 corners.

 

 

Still a mystery but really annoying one.

 

 

Yes my car has almost 240K on it.

Checked for play in the wheel bearing and CVs, none present that I could feel.

 

Swapped front and rear tires, seemed to make a difference.

 

One of the wheels that I moved from the front to rear has wheel weights stacked on top of each other. This is after the second wheel balance. I suspect this is part of the problem.

 

I've dropped it off at a dealer to have them redo that wheel and check the alignment.

 

 

Didn't know you could do that... LOL

 

if a wheel is really out of balance, stacking stick on weights makes it easier to balance. Its quicker than rotating the tire on the rim to fix it right.

 

Not saying Ive done that, but tire work doesn't pay enough to mess around with doing it right.

did you replace the steering joint? wasn't that Max's solution for steering shake?

did you replace the steering joint? wasn't that Max's solution for steering shake?

 

 

He listed it as an item installed PRIOR to noticing steering shake. Max was able to get rid of the shake with STI U-joint.

 

 

I wonder if we are looking at different sources of steering shake. Steering shake on my car sounds almost exactly as what OP is describing.

I may have missed it, but how old are the tires ?

I may have missed it, but how old are the tires ?

 

Tires are new, I've put about 1k miles on them now.

 

The STI steering u-joint was installed recently along with all the other goodies I listed in the first post.

 

I bought the car a few months ago and then spent the following weekend installing parts, all within 500 miles of owning it. Which is part of my problem, I don't know which if any of them are causing this issue, or if it is a coincidence that an existing stock part is failing at the same time

Edited September 10, 2021 by busyychild

Have someone drive next to you on the highway and see if the wheels are bouncing. It could possibly be struts. Even though only 50K on them, they still could be bad and I've seen that be the absolute issue on a couple of other vehicles before, one of them with virtually new struts.

 

I'll have someone check it. Thanks for the suggestion!

Edited September 10, 2021 by busyychild

I had similar issues with General tires in the past. I was on 235/40 vice your 235/45 though. Do you by any chance store the car/tires for a prolong period of time?

 

I'll have to check the manufacture date but I do not think they are old stock. They've been balanced now three times. If any one of the them were very badly out of round, I would hope the tech/dealership who performed the work would have mentioned it by now