Intermittent Shimmy ??

[BoxMann]

Originally Posted by PaulE

How was the car before the new tires were installed? If you had the shimmy on the old tires, and everything else checks out, it could be that one of your wheels is bent so slightly that it isn't visible to the naked eye but still results in a shimmy. The places that repair and true wheels use dial indicators to check trueness in both up and down and side to side. I had all 4 of my wheels trued while they were being refinished, and my car is now the smoothest it's ever been. Of course I went to an HPDE a couple of weeks ago and now my tires' treads are coated in race rubber with stones stuck to them, so that all needs to wear off to get the smoothness back!

Wouldn't a Roadforce balancer detect a wheel that's not true? And also, if that were the problem, why would it happen intermittently?

[PaulE]

Originally Posted by BoxMann

Wouldn't a Roadforce balancer detect a wheel that's not true? And also, if that were the problem, why would it happen intermittently?

I don't know how a road force balancer works, so I can't say. I've had tires road force balanced and been told I had a bent wheel when the bend was clearly visible, but have never been told that a wheel that looked straight and true had slight bends. It's been my experience over 16 years with my Boxster that these cars are very sensitive when it comes to steering wheel shimmy. The amount of gas in the tank, tire pressure, tread pattern and road surface all can make the shimmy intermittent in my experience. When I had all 4 of my wheels trued and refinished the car became the best it's ever been in 80,000 miles of driving it.

[jonogt6]

Why am I thinking of Tina Turner while reading this thread!