I took my 2003 2wd excursion to the shop to get new front rotors, pads, and inner/outer bearings and seal. I drove home and the next day I got on the freeway and immediately felt vibration at the steering wheel. The next day I went to discount for a balance and it did not get better. Took it back to the shop that did the brakes and they showed me on the machine that tires were off balance so they did it again. The next day I drove out of town and vibration the entire time while driving. Is it possible that the work through off the alignment? I didn't think brakes and bearing had anything to do with alignment. Should I get it aligned or look at the work they did? I've lived her a year and a half and I've been to 3 shops for something and all let me down. Just bad work here and struggling to find a good honest mechanic, I always leave with the same or worse problem.

 

Whats with the secret ghost text ?

anyhow, A vibration in the steering wheel is caused by the front wheel rotating assembly not alignment.


Since you just had your brakes done my guess is rotor run out. Assuming the vibration was not present before hand.

but more likely it was there before and you just got used to it, now with new brakes you are being hyper sensitive to it.

Common cause is your tire balance or run-out., next most common is a bent rim.

 

Not sure about the text, when I posted, I saw it turned white. Then I tried to bold and that didn't help.

Rotor runout does that mean the rotor is bad? Because it's brand new. I've only had this truck for 5 months but I've driven it quite a bit in that time and it was very smooth. The tires are 6 years old but have a lot of tread (per discount tire). As far as tire balance, I got them balanced at discount and since the vibration was still there I took it back to the shop, they said they were not balanced so they balanced them again. This weekend I drove out of state and the vibration is still bad. The shop didn't really know what to say but said bring it back and we'll try to figure it out.
You bring up a good point, I'm thinking possibly the parts were bad fron the start or installation was wrong.

 

Is someone forgetting to torque down the lug nuts? Just odd that it started all of a sudden after the work. Either it's bad parts or something careless like that.

 

Rotor runout can be “bad” parts but not likely. Usually just sloppy work and caused by not cleaning the crud off the hub matting surface.

likewise the wheel mating surface should have no corrosion or crud on it.

you don’t mention what rims you have but if not stock hub centric type then it could be as simple as not correctly installing the lug nuts.

6 year old tires are considered “aged out”
and need to be replaced regardless of tread left on them. That is the first thing the tire shop should have told you before they balanced them. ( they probably should have refused to balance them )

any good tire shop should have been able to find the cause of a vibration pretty quick, yours sounds like the kind I wouldn’t let inflate my tire, I’d suggest finding a shop less concerned with discounts and more focused on knowledge and skills.

 

I have stock rims. I don't think it's lug nuts because the shop put them on then discount tire did again, then the shop again so one of them would have gotten them right. This shop seems friendly, they filled up a lady with air and lent out a torque wrench to a guy in the neighborhood close by with no colateral. My guess is the work wasn't done right. It's a 2wd so maybe I'll take the dust cap off and look through everything.

 

If stock rims then yes, they are monkey proof

 

Put a dial indicator on the rotor and check the run out, Like wise put the dial indicator on the rims snd check those as well. A pencil works fin for checking tire run out.

If it were me, i’d start with new tires.

 

I think I'll start checking the parts amd their work. I don't want to jump into $600-800 tires just yet. Thanks for the input.

 

When wheels are tightened, if the lug nut tightness ranges up or down 10% thats around 30 ft pounds for our wheels. If they use a torque stick thats all they are good for is + or- 10%. I always tighten my lugs at home with my torque wrench so i know tbey are correct after I get them rotated or have to get new tires. If they arent tightened the same, that can cause rotor warp too.

Another thing to check, since you have a 2WD(i think you said tbat?) Is to pull off the cap on the center of the hub, remove the outer race and bearing and see how much grease is in the race. If its gobbed to one side it can cause the vibration too. When I did my rotors on my Excursion which is a 2WD, i pumped 40 pumps of grease into each center of the hub and tried to make it uniform, so they bearings always have enough lube. The nut is only snug and then backed off, followed by the castle washer to the nearest opening to get the cotter key in. They arent over tightened.

Its not impossible for the new rotors to be out of balance either! Did they use red/synthetic grease when they did it, or standard blue/black conventional grease? The color gives it away always! They are supposed to use synthetic!

i just did my rotors on my Excursion about 2 months ago. So its fresh in my mind! I do have an extra set of Powerstop crossdrilled and slotted rotors for a 2003 2WD if it comes to that for you? Id sell them cheap!(yes they are new!)

 

I'll try the lug nuts and take it for a drive before I look into it further. After that I will check the grease in the hub bearing. I was wondering if they possibly over tightened the nut and didn't back it off, what would happen. I might try to take a look at both sides today and drive it before I take it back to the shop Thursday or Friday. I gotta fix this soon because my wife wants a newish expedition now since we've had 'trouble" with excursion but I try to explain that it's not the truck, it's the work done to it. I definitely don't want to drop $40k on another truck. I'll report back on my findings.

 

I just acquired my '02 Excursion and it came with 'Americus' brand, 285/75/R16 tires that are so noisy, the semis go by me quietly.
They have less than 8,000 miles on them, do not show any tread wear....
but $1200 for a set of new Michelin LTX is above my wallet's paygrade

 

I'm still working on this issue. issue new tires about 6 weeks ago and an alignment and still have vibration. It seems to be getting worse or maybe the roads are worse here in Arizona where we moved recently. Could bad bushings be the cause? I saw the radius arm bushings are starting the crack and show wear. Haven't checked I beam, but I'm guessing most of the bushings are starting to wear.

 

Want to provide an update for anyone else with this issue. After taking it back to the shop that did my brakes and bearings twice, moving to Arizona and having 2 shops look at it, no one was able to figure it out. Finally, my dad came over and immediately did the wheel bearing test and both had play. We took the dust cap off and the nut after the cotter pin was just hand tight. We torqued to 21 ft lbs and just like that, no more play. My new tires are a little wavy and will take time to recover. This easy fix left amazed at how bad some of these shops are and that I should do my own work moving forward.