Ford - Explorer :: 2002 4x4 - Violent Steering Wheel Shudder / Death Wobble
Mar 11, 2012
My wife's having trouble with her '02 Explorer 4x4 V8 XLT.
Today I experienced a violent steering wheel shudder that I would describe as the old "death wobble" you hear about on solid axle trucks, Early Broncos, Jeeps, etc.
At 55mph, in a slight right hand turn, a little bit of a bump in the road triggered it. I held on to it as the steering wheel was rotating left and right a few degrees (maybe ~10deg) and it wouldn't stop until I slowed down to around 35mph.
I crawled underneath and didn't see anything obviously bad (tie rod ends, ball joints, etc).
Then I noticed when turning the steering wheel (with the engine running, but parked) I could feel it shuddering slightly as I turned it.
The PS pump makes quite a bit of noise so I wonder if its on the way out.
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I got a 2006 Solara SLE. while braking from highway speeds, the steering wheel shakes VIOLENTLY. city driving its not noticable. cruising the car is silky smooth. The one front caliper was sticking and i replaced pads, pins, rotor. Still shakes. i tried swapping pins as one pin has a sleeve at the tip and i didnt remember which one went where. i did notice the pin with no sleeve fits loosely. the rotor is AZ Duralast brand. the car has 200k trouble free with no suspension work ever done.
I am lost what to do and need to make a long trip coming up. I was going to try in order- replace other rotor, spin the one rotor and replace guide pin with a sleeved one, then do lateral run out test/lathe, alignment, then if that dosnt work a stick of dynamite. Iheard a bad tie rod or ball joint can cause this, i find it unlikely as it would probably shake all the time. Other small issue is a loud thunk in the rear when it hits bumps. Rear swaybar mounts?
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Recently replaced the steering stabilizer with Rancho RS5415 and all 4 shocks with the adjustable Rancho 9000XL. The death wobble at 40-60 mph on rough roads has not gone away. The truck rides much better, however the death wobble is violent enough to shake the change out of the change holder and the only way to stop it is to pull over and slow to 10-15 mph. The steering wheel also has slight vibration when going over smaller bumps such as expansion joints.
2011 KR 6.7L 4x4
47k miles (no ESP)
20" wheels with stock size tires
100% stock no lift or modifications
Never wrecked & most driving is on the highway. The tires show no signs of abnormal wear and the truck drives straight.
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Just purchased this vehicle. The cruise control and radio controls On the steering wheel will not work. It has aftermarket stereo , not sure if wiring from that would affect cruise control as well as radio controls. Cruise light does not even light on dash. Clockspring? Radio wiring harness?
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I have a 2004 superduty 250 4x4 with the 6.0. I am having a violent shake in the steering wheel mostly and can feel it in throttle at about 45 to 60 and at 72 there is s growel. Have changed tires, wheels checked all ball joints tie rods wheel bearings ujoints. Don't matter brakes on or off, od on or off nothing changes it. I really don't know what else to check.
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I put on a leveling kit a few months ago and pretty much replaced a lot of worn out parts in the front fenders. With the exception of lower control arms, shocks and springs. Just about everything else that moved was replaced I think.
Well now it seems like every time I hit a decent bump in the road my truck jumps to the side. It's very noticeable if I'm going around a corner and hit a bump. The steering wheel is thrown from side to side so I'm fairly certain that the issue is up front but don't really know where to start looking.
The truck may have done this before the leveling kit but it's very exaggerated now. It's so bad at times that my husband won't drive it.
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As the title says. Last night my MKIV started this jump in the steering. No load or decelerating, the wheel does a pulse or jump, fairly violent. I drove ten miles with no problem, then a couple jumps, then fine. Pulled tires and inspected, checked bearings, tie rods, ball joints. nothing obvious. Could it be something in the power steering?
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It seems that my 2010 F250 truck has come down with the dreaded death wobble. My truck is stock and has 63k miles. I was driving home today on a 2 lane side road and hit a few bumps that almost put me into the oncoming traffic. That sure did get my attention! I've been ready a lot on this site and wanted some opinions if replacing the stock steering stabilizer would fix my problem.
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1999 F-350 7.3 Dually 2wd Front End issues. I think I may have several things going on so here goes. Truck has about 130,000 miles on it . Bought it with 60,000 miles in 2009.
It's always worn the front tires weird but it's gotten a lot worse and it's happening in about 10-15 thousand miles now. It's wearing the tires on both sidewalls like under-inflation but I run 70 lbs in them. I've noticed for several years now that it makes a knocking sound and I feel it in the floorboard, shakes in the steering wheel when I turn to the left only in a corner at speed. (65-70) ...
Now it's started intermittently going into the death wobble at slow speeds like the caster is to negative on it. I'm sure it could use some shocks but I just rotated the tires and I felt no play anywhere. I know when we used to get that bumping in the floor board on older Fords it was a bad radius arm bushing but that couldn't be all of what's going on here. I've done searches on this and it has happened to others but I haven't found a resolution from any yet.
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I have a 1993 f150. Problem is that the steering wheel can wobble back and forth about a half inch or so. I took the wheel off and it looks like there is a lock ring holding everything in place. I just wondered if there was a solution to this to fix it
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My truck has developed a wobble in the steering wheel. I don't mean when you are driving down the road, but the steering wheel wobbles around. It wobbles in any position that the Till shaft is set to. How to repair.
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I have a '15 Ford F-350 w/ 6.7 - 34k miles. Most of my driving is towing a 30'RV trailer. Today, without any trailer, I was on a local interstate and at around 65 mph on a bumpy stretch of highway the death wobble started. Had it come and go 3 times in a few miles requiring me to slow to about 45 or so to stop it. Never had any such happening prior.
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My 05 F20 CC LB 6.0 4WD has the alternator light on for a few miles then goes out also sometimes goes away when you accelerate hard, is my alternator going, or is this some common glitch in the light hopefully?? Also every once in a while got the death wobble, installed tie rod ends and center link, but if I hit a bump just right it does it.
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I put new ball joints on a few months ago and now the truck is starting the death wobbles felling even around slight bends in the road.I jacked it up and the passenger side tire will move 1" side to side scarey.Not sure what I need to replace.
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I'm having the same issue that I had on my previous Mkv car. Around 55-80mph the steering wheel will wobble back and forth at about a quarter of an inch very quickly. It's an identical shake to my last Mkv. I had the wheels balanced and checked for bends and the car aligned. Didn't work. Went to various shops spent too much on balancing. One shop showed me that one of my tires was slightly out of round. So I bought 4 new tires and had them road forced shop said everything was great. Hopped on the freeway and the same wobble was still there. Car is at 52k miles and I've been battling this problem for about 5k miles now.
I've had the entire car checked. One tech told me that the axels could have gone bad so it is going in under warranty to get new axels on Tuesday, then going back in for an alignment. My last Mkv had the same issue around the same mileage and I spent so much on trying to figure it out I eventually got sick of it and traded it in on this GTI. My girl friend just bought an 09 Jetta and it seems to be having early signs of the same vibration. I'm starting to think its an issue with the generation. My mk3 with 200k miles drives smoother than this thing. I love the car but me driving on the freeway so often really kills the enjoyment.
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Off late my Honda Odyssey steering wheel wobble beyond 60MPH ONLY while going STRAIGHT and foot off of the GAS (which enters eco mode).My mechanic looked at it and said, it is not alignment or any mechanical issue. I looked at the other posts and I could not find any closer to this.
One more thing, I have got the Steering Pump fixed as part of a Recall ( at slow speeds, while turning makes a lot of noise)
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I have an '05 Honda Odyssey, that has a wobble in the steering wheel, when I am going more than 60 mph. It has 87K miles on it. Tires seem smooth. Below 40mph it is not there or un-noticable. There is no pulling left or right, it does not seem to get worse if I go from 60 to 80.
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So my 07 with 125k miles has had new rotors for about 50k miles or so, but for a while now when the brakes get hot it gets a violent shudder on braking at highway speeds....the odd part to me is nothing at lower speeds, and not always at higher speeds....do I just have warped rotors again? The rest of the front end I good and tight....
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I had new tyres put on my 2002 Accent 1.5 CDX a few weeks ago, they are 175/70 R 13 and i have Genuine Hyundai Alloy wheels. Over the past few days, Ive noticed a bad wobble that i can feel through the steering wheel, but seems to come from the rear of the car, although it could come from the front, as the car seems to wander around on the road, but going along at 50 mph and taking my hand off the wheel for a second or two it doesn't pull either way, you can just see the steering wheel visible moving from left to right and back again!!!!!
I changed the back wheels to the front and vice versa, and the problem went away, for 24 hours and came back again!!!! This wobble is getting worse, I've had the wheels balanced, rims seem ok, suspension checked, etc and all fine. The only thing I am not sure about is worn track rod ends, and I am not sure what to look for this wobble is at its worse between 30 and 55 mph, but it can be felt on any road (from starting off) and at any speed.
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I bought this 2005 Hyundai Elantra with 68 000 kilometers, and it had some nasty steering wheel wobble at about 80km/h and what felt like right rear brake issues. We got 4 awesome tires put on and balanced and that took care of most of the wobble/shaking, and took care of most of the wobble in the right rear wheel. The other day we pulled the rear wheels to do the brakes (pads and rotors), but the rotors we got didn't come with the holes for the retaining screws but one of the guys at auto value said it would be fine, and if not, then take them back.
We put those rotors on and then bolted the wheels back on and i didn't even get down my driveway since the rotor in the right rear wheel felt like it was fumbling around in there. jacked the car up and there was play in both rear rotors but much more so in the right rear one. the rims that came with the car are 15" honda rims with a 4 bolt pattern so could that be the issue that these rims don't bolt up properly over the hubs? i thought that 4 bolt rims for honda, kia, hyundai, and others had the same bolt pattern? am i missing something here? or should i just find new rotors with the retaining holes?
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My 2005 Honda Civic just made it through a blizzard (outside the whole time). This morning I started driving it, and whenever I got above 45 mph the steering wheel started vibrating / whobbling very badly. My car seat was also vibrating. I poured hot water over the rims when I got home and that did not seem to work. Should I take it to a car wash? Is my car safe to drive?
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