Vibration in front-end

**asshanson** · 09-09-2007

First off, the car is a 96 Talon AWD. Some history: when I was in Ames this past weekend something happened to the front passenger rim and the tire lost all its air Saturday night. Checked it out and found there was a hairline crack in the rim, opposite side of the spokes, so I got that re-sealed with some rubber stuff at a local shop just to get back to Minneapolis where I could replace the rim. Not sure how long this crack has been there, didn't hit any potholes to make it crack, maybe a bump knocked the tire seal loose and the crack has been there for months, no idea.

Everything was fine until half way home, when I started getting a lot of vibration in the front end whenever I'd be on the gas (vibration instantly stopped when coasting in gear). This made me think it just wasn't a balance issue with the wheel, something else had to be causing it. Temp guage was fine, oil was a little low so I put a quart in, and re-tightened the lug nuts on the wheel just in case, and tire was still holding at ~35 psi, no leaks.

However this didn't fix anything, so I continued on like this with the vibrations, they would come and go every few minutes off and on until we got back to the city. Then, when driving in the city, things started to get worse, vibrations would get more intense, and when coasting, instead of getting better, it felt like the entire wheel was going to vibrate off, the vibrating reduced dramatically with some gas, so now I had the opposite problem, again making me think it's more than just an issue with the tire (still at ~35 psi when I got home).

Finally I get back downtown, but the vibration issues are completely gone, I'm assuming because I didn't get over 30mph. However, when I braked to a stop, it felt like the front wheels lurched, I can't explain it that well. I heard a sound each time I stopped, and it almost felt like something came loose each time. I'm going to jack it up tomorrow and take a look underneath to see if anything obvious is broken, and if not switch to my winter tires to see if the problems persist. In the meantime, any suggestions on what could be causing the various problems???

Thanks,
Andrew