ruflife1

I am in St. Louis also. Who did your roadforce balance? I had a problem like this a few years back and it turned out to be a broken belt in one of the fronts. Just an FYI as I am not sure how to check.

Another thought, my S63 is very susceptible to air pressure changes in the tires. When the temperature changes like it does at this time of year, I get a vibration from 60-80 mph until I rectify the pressure.

khutchinson22

I had it done at Plaza Auto in St Charles. They had a top of the line road force balancer and it had been calibrated the day before.

I don't suppose you have a set of factory rims for a CL by chance? I am trying to track down a set that I can run for a couple days so I can eliminate the wheels/tires as the culprit.

castroadan

So back to this, I had a wheel shake also, it turned out to be the wheel bearings.

khutchinson22

I've already tightened the wheel bearings. Made it more noticeable.

Last night I replaced the rearward control arm ball joint and the forward control arm on the passenger front wheel. This has provided the most substantial improvement thus far. In doing this I noticed cupping on the same tire. I am assuming this would account for the remaining vibration. The only thing that makes me doubt it is that I don't have much, if any, steering wheel shake. Either way, I have tires on order. We shall see.

castroadan

I had both my real wheel bearing replaced and the shake was gone.

khutchinson22

Update: I've now replaced the front tires (one of them had some severe cupping) and the vibration is now almost totally gone. I now have a minor one that comes and goes (3sec on 3sec off) and seems to be coming from the rear and seems to go away after about 3-5 miles of driving. Differential fluid?

Also, what does the differential call for fluid wise?

castroadan

I figured it would be your tires or bent wheel.
As for me it turned out to be the rear wheel bearings.

driveability

What a nightmar !!
So replacing the tire helped. The reality is if your not a trained tech with lots of experience you will tend to have trouble. There's many levels of car repair that reading or just using this site without a high level of training at best you fix the car but it takes loads of time and parts

khutchinson22

Well, I do have a lot of training and experience. I've been turning wrenches on all types of cars for over 20 years. Also, 2 dealerships and a Mercedes Master tech at an indy shop have looked at the car along with about 6 other professionals and not one of them noticed cupping on the tire.

khutchinson22

So, I'm pretty sure my car is possessed.

If you've been following my vibration saga you might remember that there was a point early on where the vibration would go away after the car had been on a lift for a period of time and then return a day or two later. Well, it's back. It seems to not really be speed related but is most noticeable above 60mph and it is intermittent (3sec on 3sec off).

At this point it will be easier to list the things I haven't done;

- Nothing on the driveshaft has been touched (all visually inspect ok)
- The rearward front control arms have not been replaced and there is up and down play where they meet the struts of about 1/4" but they are being replaced tonight as soon as we can find a way to break the allen bolts loose at the bottom of the strut.

Beyond that I am at a total loss.

Might be time to sage it or hold a seance.

BlownV8

Get some known good wheels and tires. Should clear it up. See if another member or dealership will swap so you can eliminate the wheels/tires. These cars are very sensitive to even the slightest bit of unevenness.

khutchinson22

The tires are all brand new. The wheels have been repaired to within .0015 tolerance.

I have, however, been looking for factory wheels to put on to eliminate them as a possibility but have been unsuccessful in locating any.

RaceHorse

I had a issue with a front rim which resulted in very similar vibration. in my case straightening the wheel, and an alignment solve the problem. Another thing to consider is the size of rims and tire you have packaged. It sounds like you're running a lower profile than stock but also stretched based on your rim width. Despite all the parts you have replace, a very short side wall may show the age and mileage of the car,that would normally be absorbed in a 40 series tire up front.

khutchinson22

I'm running 20" x 10" fronts with a 245/45 and 20" x 11" rears with 265/35 (I think).

You could be right about an issue being more noticeable with that setup but that doesn't negate the fact that there is an issue that needs resolved.

What's so baffling is that it goes away for a day after being lifted. That just blows my mind.

RaceHorse

If you have a chance check out the website: http://www.1010tires.com/ If you plug in your stock sizes you can find what should be the correct height combo and appropriate width. The tires you are running should be on much narrower wheels. Like you mentioned it seems that there is still a problem regardless of your tire setup, but it may be more noticeable as a result. At this point, I would try just jacking the front and then the rear (at different times) to see what makes it go away. If what you are experiencing is coming back after the suspension is being extended, then you can focus on what half of the car is at fault.

driveability

Glad you are getting a handle on it !!!

khutchinson22

I certainly hope so. This situation is making it really difficult to love this car.

fireman685

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here but prior to replacing both flex disks I had a very annoying intermittent vibration. Any vibration to me drives me crazy. New engine/trans mounts helped a lot but there was always something still there. I had the disks inspected when the car was in for a tune up right after my shoulder surgery and I was told they "looked good". Fast forward about 15k miles I'm under the car with a pry bar checking the rear suspension arms hoping to find some cause of this vibration. For sh-ts and giggles I pry on the rear flex disk and low and behold I see cracks all around the bolt sleeves. So I said *** it and bought two new ones and made an appt with the rent a bay place. One of the disks I was sent was the wrong one so what I did was put the new one on the front since it was the more difficult one to remove and put the old front one on the back since it had very few and tiny cracks. I noticed a positive change for a few weeks mostly in that there was less clunking when changing from reverse to drive but there still seemed to be a vibration. Well after I exchanged the wrong part for the right one I made yet another appt at the lift place and got to work. Now after I had the new disk in place and was bolting it up I noticed the diff and driveshaft were not lined up like they should be so when tightening down the bolts it made the new flex disk look warped. I freaked out thinking something was wrong but realized that maybe the subframe bushings were sagging a little. Anyway I buttoned it all back up and took off. I jumped on I-35 and punched it hitting 80 in just a few seconds and guess what.... It was smooth as fuking silk. The vibration had always appeared between 65-80. Sometimes it would go away after 80 but not usually. You've got to remember the amount of torque being placed on those and any tiny crack you maybe can see is probably and big crack when under a load and it will throw the whole driveline out of balance.
If yours are original with 115k miles I promise you they are bad.

khutchinson22

I ordered the Flex Discs last night as well as a new shaft support mount. I will report back first with results of the rearward control arms and again after the flex discs.

Thanks again for all the help, guys!

castroadan

Excuse my ignorance but where are the flex disks located?

khutchinson22

The flex discs are the mounting points for the drive shaft to the differential and transmission. They are where a U-Joing would typically go. In this image they're called vibration dampers.

fireman685

There's one on each end of the driveshaft between it and the transmission and differential.

castroadan

Not get off topic but I have a vibration when I am at a light with the brake on. If I put it on park it seems to go away.
I replaced the tranny mount. And it don't solve it. Any idea what could be causing the vibration?

fireman685

Engine mounts.

StarvingArtist

Factory spec alignment has excessive toe in (unless your going 155mph). It wears a pattern in the tires. In the beginning it comes and goes with tire temperature, and just gets worse. Negative camber and soft tires amplify the problem. I used to start feeling it on new tires within 400 miles. After 5 sets of tires and lots of ball joints and control arms, I finally cured it with K-mac bushings in the front to reduce the negative camber and set my toe to almost 0 (.015" total at the front of the rim). Then I bought 500 tread wear Michelin as3 tires and went 30k before the vibration started coming back.


If your tires are newish you can smooth out the pattern with a big grinder and 24 grit paper. spin it against chalk, it will be mostly on the inside edge.

Toe is the biggest factor.
Cost me a small fortune to learn that, hope it helps.