Severe Steering Shakes

[storeys66]

Evening all,

I've had my 2003 330i M-Sport auto saloon for over a month now and have covered a little under 1000 miles in it. Everything's brilliant on it, apart from a pretty worrying problem...

At speeds between 40mph and 60mph, there's a judder / shaking through the steering that gets worse. In fact, it gets so bad that the whole car starts shaking quite severely :wacko:.

I appreciate that there are hundreds of possible causes for this, including sticking brake callipers, wheels being off balance, worn control arm bushes, dodgy wheel alignment, etc.

One thing I have noticed is that the nearside rear tyre pressure decreases more noticeably than it should, but that when the pressure is lower, the shaking is much less noticeable.

The shaking goes away almost completely at speeds over 60mph, although I can feel a much higher frequency vibration through the steering wheel at around 85mph (where permitted, of course).

Does anyone have any bright ideas for things I should look to eliminate before starting on the journey of replacing my entire suspension setup bit by bit? I've already had the wheels balanced :huh:...

Cheers all,

Sam

[DanE46-328ci]

Hello mate , I had exactly the same thing happen to mine bout 3 months ago , it started to shake on and off like u said it was real bad at times , only done it 3 times with me then the caliper failed and stuck on , changed it and it hasnt happened since hope that helps

[storeys66]

Hey Dan. Cheers for that. I've got it booked in at my local independent specialist (not paying £108 for BMW to spend 45 mins pondering what it could be) on Thurs. Hopefully they'll be able to check all of the callipers and bushes when it's up on the ramps. I'll keep people posted about what it turns out to be. Hopefully not an imbalanced prop-shaft (another potential diagnosis)!

[btmaldon]

Sounds like it is wheel balancing. Through the steering wheel suggests front wheels, through the whole car is usually the rears. You may have both sets. Could be the tyres but these are likely to be worn badly on the inner or outer edges.

[rasa]

twice last year both front calipers month apart.when it happens get out and spit on the disc ,if the spit bounces off then its way to hot and may even warp,plus put ya face near as you can and see if you can feel heat

[storeys66]

Massive thanks to you all for the possible problems... The testing of brake disc temperatures after a quick run suggested it was a sticking caliper on the front off-side.

I took it down to my local independent specialist, Sam at Autobase Bristol, and it did indeed turn out to be a sticking front off-side brake caliper. The wheels were out of alignment too, which probably didn't help matters.

It's all fixed now and runs like it should. The only remaining niggle is that the steering wheel is still not straight when the car's pointing dead ahead. If anything, it now seems even more off centre... I can probably live with that though.

[Steve]

i was gonna suggest the brakes.. usual way of testing is to spit on the disks (gross i know) to see which one is the hottest, or simply feel the temprature rise off the wheel.

second suggestion was check tyre for bulge, but its not that ;)

[rasa]

i was gonna suggest the brakes.. usual way of testing is to spit on the disks (gross i know) to see which one is the hottest, or simply feel the temprature rise off the wheel.

second suggestion was check tyre for bulge, but its not that ;)

i suppose you never read the whole thread,if you had then your post would not have been

[Guest Mister Dabsy]

Sorry I missed this one... First thing I would've done was rest my palm on each alloy to check difference in temps... Easy to say now though, sorry again!