bighifi

The saga continues with my Benz, but I love the car so I must journey forward I notice a continues vibration about 65MPH and beyond. It feels as if a tire is out of balance but have had them balanced three times. I was told I had a bent rim, so I replaced it, did not fix the problem. Does anyone else have any other ideas? Should I have the rims balanced(oem) on both sides (dynamic) or just on the one side?

sph17

Have you rotated your tires front to rear? If yes, did the vibration seem to move to the rear, or change in anyway? If no, try it. Have you put your spare on at different locations? With five tire/wheel combinations to play with you should be able to figure if it is a tire/wheel issue. Mabe you have two problems, and changing/replacing what you did only addressed one of them.

Good luck!

davis449

Maybe someone has mentioned this before, but have you had your suspension checked? I hear that bad control arm bushings (upper and lower) can cause such a problem. Also, alignment may be to blame. I've heard so many things that go wrong when the alignment is out of whack.

bighifi

I am in the process of changing rims one by one. The problem did seem to move to the back when I had the tires rotated. I am leaning towards a bad rim. I will check out the control arm thing, and I had MB do an alignment just a little while ago.

blackmercedes

The W202 cars have a rep for needing frequent front lower ball joint replacement, and the rep is well earned. However, your problem (moving around) sounds like a wheel or tire. The W202 is sensitive to balance and tire integrity. An out-of-round tire gives the symptom you described. Also, did you have the tires/wheels balanced three times at the same shop? That's a no-no, as they might have fouled it up each time. If the shop has a different location, try that, as a different machine might saolve your problem. Do they have a "road force" balancer? That can work well not only in balancing but in identifying tire problems.

vas2vas

speaking of tires....would the stock 16" rims from an E-class (W210 I believe) with 225/60R16 rubber fit my 95 c280
I imagine the tires probably wouldn't but would it work if I put lower profile rubber, do the offsets match? do I need spacers?

blackmercedes

The W210 wheels fit the W202 chassis exactly. No need for spacers or other band-aids.

However, the 225/60-16 tire is WAYYYYYYY too tall for your car. It's too damn tall for a W210. It's 26.7" tall. You need something 25".

Your C280 takes the 16" tire sizes:

205/55-16

225/50-16

W124, W201, W202, W203 and W210 all accept most stock wheels interchangably. (is that a word?)

unclearty

Another thought....have you recently had brakes replaced in the front?? MB's have old style front wheel bearings in the front that need to be repacked and reseated at every brake replacement. The bearings, over time, loosen just a little and the front wheels can have a very slight to moderate wobble to them. At highway speeds, when you hit even a slight abnormality in the road, expansion joint, pothole, etc, you can start a slight "out of balance" condition that usually will go away if you slow down a little then re-accelerate. Jack up one side of your front end , grab a front wheel at 10 and 5 and wiggle...if you feel and hear looseness, repack and retourqe the front wheel bearings.

bighifi

I have had the tires balanced at three different locations. I will try and find a dealer with the balancer you talked about. I had the rear brakes redone, actually they had to replace the rotors. That is when I started to notice the problem. Could the rotor be out of round or something?

unclearty

If they were out of round, you would only feel it when you lightly applied the brakes...not driving on the hgwy with your foot OFF the brake.

bighifi

Yah, that is what I thought as well. Everything feels fine when braking

davis449

Actually, the symptoms he's describing can be an out of round tire. I have had three sets total go out of round on me. Two sets on the YUKON and most recently the set on my W 202. The Benz dealer diagnosed my shaking above 65 as out of round tires. Discount took them off and sure enough, they were out of round. I replaced them and everything's fine.

E55AMG99

While this sounds like he has eggs for tires, remember that everything that spins needs to be in balance. Brake rotors/hubs are supposed to be balanced as an individual unit before they go on the car. However, I've seen one or two that were not done correctly. If balancing the tire on the car requires different weight after it was balanced off the car, something with the rest of the rotating assembly is amiss. None of this will be felt in the brake pedal.

714guy

what kinda of vibrations are you getting and to where, back then my steering wheel kept vibrating at high speeds i checked everything, except the shocks, they were leaking, once i changed them it drove like new.

bighifi

I was told my front shocks are leaking. Was this causing your vibration?

TechSuperstar

My sense tells me your local tire center is getting all they can out of you. I have had very bad rotors and still had no extra vibration at high speeds. The brakes shouldn't affect the balance much. If I were you I would take the car to some smalltime garage and have them balance the tires. Tell them to check the rims and look for any flat spots in the tire. A small local garage will sometimes let you watch them as they spin the tire, that way you will know for sure. Even if you have a small flat spot on a rim the tire will still balance and give you a smooth ride. I have a flat spot in one of mine. I replaced the tire, had it balanced and its smooth all the way up 100+mph