The other morning, my dealer called and asked me if I had experienced any problems with the steering wheel shaking at high speeds, because another customer of his had called him about that problem. I had been experiencing the problem, so I told him I'd help him research it.

My steering wheel begins to shake noticeably when driving around 60-80mph.

Does anybody else experience this in their xB? Is it normal for the car to do this?

Bob

 

do you have hubcentric rings installed ? might solve your problem...

 

yeah i do too around 75 - 80 mph i thought it was just the rims and tires werent balanced correctly. do you have rims on your scion to bobby? if you get any info keep me posted thanks

 

It could be the road condition. I know some roads (particularly Westbound 70 in MD) it's shaky. While East bound 70 is smooth. :? I've also heard that hard compound tires, like the Pirelli's will make the car more prone to shaking. Also possible belt separation within in the tire.

 

my stock wheels did not shake. However my aftermarket wheels did...badly.

They shook until i took them and had them balanced the correct way. They need weights on the inside and the outside of the wheel.

 

I actually just dropped my car off at the dealership to get some work done. While it's there, I was lucky enough to have a stock xB rented to me. I am going to use this to my advantage and run some tests, as to see if it has the same problem.

I have 18's on my xB, but do not have hubcentric rings... or I don't think I do, at least.

What are hubcentric rings exactly?

Oh, and on a positive note...

I can smoke cigarettes in the rental xB! It just doesn't feel right, though... My xB or not, I feel like the non-smoking environment suits it better.

I'll keep you guys posted.


Bob

 

on all the the scions you really should have hub centric rings they help the wheels run round off of the hub rather than the lugs. Even then you still might need to have the tires balanced on the vehicle. Most tire shops use off the car balancers and that will only take care of a problem up to about 40-45 mph. On thw car balancing is done between 55-120 mph. :D

 

hubcentric rings help center the wheel on the hub as you tighten it down. They are not necessary if you tighten the lugs evenly in a criss cross patern (not crank the first lug down tight, then the one next to it).

 

I completely disagree--it won't matter if you tighten the lugs in a criss cross pattern, because all the load is still going directly to the 4 studs--instead of to the ring on the wheel hub that the stock wheel would attach to.

With no hubcentric ring on an aftermarket wheel that isn't fitting properly, the only thing your wheels are held on by are the 4 lug studs.

With wheels with a hubcentric ring or the stock wheels, you get the inner ring that is grafted on the wheel hub on the car to support the wheel and make sure it's balanced and straight--and then you get the lug studs involved as a 2ndary means of centering things as well as holding onto the wheel.

And yes, the reason your wheel shakes is because the wheels do not have a hubcentric ring, causing mad vibrations. Your local wheel/tire shop should be able to find you a working set for very little money.

 

i have the hubcentric rings in my wifes xB and they are plastic! I doubt plastic can hold the weight of the vihcle. The rings only line up the wheel until the lugs are tight. I'm not trying to flame, but have a discussion.

 

The rings center the wheel onto the hub and prevent shaking.

Even if you criss cross the lugs, I doubt you can get all 4 wheels that have 4 lugs each as perfect as you would with the ring there for the wheel to be mounted on before you tighten down the lugs.

And also, the rings that you have are plastic--i've seen some made out of what looked to be aluminum if not some sort of metal, and they don't necessarily support the weight of the car--dude, the wheels touch the ground, not the rings...but what they do support is area of difference on the backpad of the wheel.

Maybe i'm just explaining it wrong--but it makes sense to me to want to have a wheel mounted on a hub and then with lugs, instead of just with lugs...? If the stock setup uses the hub--what is the harm in adapting it to your set of aftermarket wheels, especially since it's so cheap to do so?

 

just to add

stock rims does not require hub rings

some aftermarket rims are designed for specific cars/ trucks, usually no hub rings needed

most aftermarket rims are designed to accomodate wide variety of cars/trucks hence hub rings are required for the specific fitment.

 

I asked several shops in my area about the rings and they all said the same thing, they help center the wheel but do not take any load. Which makes sense, the tolerance would have to be at 0 to actually get the load off the lug nuts. I put my wheels on (73mm bore) with no hub rings, tightened them down with the wheel still in the air (important) and crossed my pattern while tightening. I get a very very slight (the wife doesn't even feel it) shake at 59mph that goes away at 61. Feels more like a balance issue than an out of round issue. Still, having said all that, if I could get my hands on the centering rings, I would.

Back to the thread. I've only had mine up to 71mph and there was 0 shaking in the steering wheel with the stock wheels.

 

Once I hit the highway tonight with this stock xB, I'll know a bit more about that, as well.

JDM is telling me that the hubcentric rings are definitely the reason, but superjeer just said he found out some more information on hubcentric rings from some local shops. Did the information he found make JDM's any less true that the rings would stop the shaking?

Bob

 

No, because without the rings you need to be mindfull of what you're doing when mounting the wheels or you can mount them off center, causing the rotation to be out of round. Then it would REALLY look like a clown car.. Anyway, the rings will make sure you have the wheel on center.

 

check the ballance on the tires. i had a really bad vibration after i put the 18's on my wifes xB. i tried the rings, and it made no difference. it turned out to be a bad ballance job. re-ballanced all 4 wheels, and its been perfect since.

 

do exactlywhat he said...i work at discount tire...if gettin them balanced doesnt do it... u need hub rings...cuz alotta the times when u buy new wheels...the tire will turn on the wheel...cuz u have to put lube on the tire to put it on the rim...so if u spin ur tires or hit a hard brake or sumthin of that nature...the tire will tunr on the wheel & cause it to throw off the balance...very common problem with new wheels...let me know how it turns out bro

 

dunno if the original poster has the problems with the stockers or aftermarkets.

mine shakes as well - around 70-80 mph. went to longo to check out the problem - according to the service advisor - his tech cannot test at that speed since it is unsafe to do so and they only tested it up to 65mph and found no problems - uh hello, didn't I state that the shakes occurred at 70-80mph? - but they said that they will try to rebalance the front wheels anyways - did it work? nope! still has the shakes - oh well, maybe a local tire shop can rebalance them or do a rotation. This is on a STOCK xB with the STOCK susp and STOCK rims/tires with a corrected PSI of 32.5lbs per tire.

btw - i agree on hub-centric rims or adapters (either plastic or metal) 100%!!! especially when you only got 100mm between studs and only 4 nuts to hold them on!! imagine the forces generated from heavier 17-18-19 wheels!!

 

Thanks for the help, guys.

Bob

 

my steering shakes at around 70-80 with stock and aftermarket wheels, i think all scions are the same, not a lot of people will notice because they haven't driven much on the stock wheels


to answer your question, yes, it shakes