Vibration Question
 

On smooth roads I feel a vibration in the steering wheel and even in the seat when driving at highway speeds. The steering wheel vibration is not a shimmy and I don't have any visible steering wheel movement when it occurs.

I am not sure it is related but I also feel a vibration when I rest my hand on the center console at a dead stop. Is this normal for these cars? I have a 2010 e350 4matic sport suspension.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Could be wheel out of balance or tire out of round. These cars are super smooth on the highway, should not have any vibrations.

I had a similar problem. It took three visits to get the tires properly balanced.

When was the last time you had the tires balanced?
Have you been rotating the tires every 6-8,000 miles?

Thanks. It's a recently purchased CPO with new tires so I presume they balanced them. I've only been driving it a month or so and not high mileage. I am waiting for a new wood kit so will bring it up when I get that work done. To be frank, my first service experience was not all that good. Without going into gory details my expectation is denial of anything being wrong so it helps to go in armed with what can potentially be wrong. Maybe they didn't perform a wheel alignment with the new tires. The vibration when idleing has a similar feel to that when traveling at highway speeds. Perhaps they are related. Is the vibration when idleing normal? It is pretty apparent when I have my hand on the arm rest.

There always is some vibration coming from a running engine but perhaps your case is a problem.

As to troubleshoot if the vibration you feel when driving is the same that you feel when car does not move is quite simple. If the vibration during drive is coming from the engine it will change frequency with the engine speed so while you are going with cruise set on a highway change the gear down manually. This makes the engine revolution speed go up and if what you feel as vibration changes to higher frequency with it then it probably is coming from the engine.

You bought the car as a CPO warranties used car. It is strange that the dealer will deny issues like this as if the car is a CPO car the dealer gets paid by MB for warranty work. Have you checked that in MB system it says your car warranty actually is what they claim?

there are 2 kind of people - sensitive and not sensitive
if you have new tires and they are Road Force Balanced and you still have "slight vibration"
which you feel on a steering wheel you maybe just too sensitive guy like me
I feel "slight WH Speed vibration" too and i did road force balance , alignment and new tires + nothing wrong with my suspension +
the wheels LB are less then 10 on all 4 corners ( thanks to Road Force Balance )
It can be a Sport package which transfer road noise to you in such a manner
Try play with tire pressure and see what is the best for you , i found 33-35 PSI Cold is a best choice ( i have staggered setup )
Another thing is tires , the best choice is Michelin
My car has Pirelly Zero tires , they are not bad but not as excellent as Michelin
GL

Will give that a shot thanks. The car is warranted. The in-service date is June 2010 so the new car warranty is good till next June when CPO kicks in. I won't go on a long rant - ok maybe I will - but the reason for my statement about the lack of service expectation is for a couple of reasons. Soon after purchase, I brought the car in to take care of a couple of minor things. In addition to the minor things the car has faded wood but I was told by sales that it was on backorder for several weeks so wanted the other stuff tended to in the mean time. One of those issues is I have a noise coming from the front when going over certain terrain like a speed bump. My dis-service rep first said that the suspension is fine and "the sound is normal". I pushed back and then he said that he would personally drive with the mechanic to listen for it. During update conversations with the rep - with repect to progress - I was told that the wood had been replaced which was a pleasant surprise since I hadn't expected it. When the work was "completed" I went to the dealer and was taken aback when the old faded wood was still there. The rep said that Service said it was replaced and to leave the car and it would be replaced the next day. I asked if the wood was in stock since my initial understanding was it is on backorder and was told it was and it would be "ready tomorrow." So, I get the call the next day and was told it was not in stock. I asked about the noise and was told that it was fixed, i.e., lubed. At this point I wasn't annoyed since the dealer was standing by the car. When I went to pick up the car the the dis-service rep had left for the day but when I saw the work papers it was noted that the noise could not be replicated and the customer has to drive with the mechanic, i.e., nothing was done. So that was the last straw and putting it all into perspective, I complained. I will chalk this up to an incompetent rep, probably someone's useless son-in-law, and asked for a new one. I will get the noise fixed and the vibration thing looked at when I get the wood. Hopefully the new rep is competent.

Sorry for the long rant.

I am probably sensitive. I am coming from a Lexus LS and I know it is apples to oranges so in no way expecting road isloation. I do love my Benz though and have zero remorse :)

i am very sensitive i had new rims and vibration at 45 mph and 65 mph

i took it to the independent shop three times they balance problem persists

finally they took my wheels to a place were they had a new balance machine which they performed a radial force balance and now it is perfect zero vibration on steering

so it may just need to be radial force balance

I feel a slight vibration as well.However, it only happens when the engine RPM is below 1750 ,mostly 1500 RPM. I recently read E250 BLUETEC topic and found that vibration was coming from the shaft .
The speed is around 70-80 km/h and RPM must be maximum 1500 for this to happen , otherwise if you use more than 1750 RPM ,you feel nothing it's silky smooth

You guys should have the engine mounts checked. If you get vibration when idle its probably not he suspension.

engine mounts will not happen for so low miles
you should have at minimum 40-50k+ to replace them

Drove the car with a buddy and he agreed that there was excessive vibration. Probably tire balancing. I don't think I'm going to wait for the wood and will bring it in this week.

My vibration problems were fixed. For the record: They replaced both the engine and tranny mounts. I don't feel the car idling any more. They also said the rims were bent and they fixed those. I also went on a rant about my service advisor. I asked for another and the new one was just spectacular. I received frequent updates on my repair status and throughout and she saw to it that all my problems were looked at. The other rep should be fired immediately if not sooner!! The guy was just lazy. Never called me back and told me stuff was "normal". I saw him when I picked up the car - couldn't look at him - Morte to me!

Great to see, vibration was fixed ,I believe what makes a good dealership mostly depends on the employees as well as tech skills

I have been having similar problems ever since I put new tires on. I'm thinking it could still be that the balance is off, but the motor mount thing is interesting. I noticed a rough idle over the last week or two. I thought maybe it was because I got gas at speedway right before it closed down and they tore it down. This post gives me the idea that it might be worth checking the engine mounts in addition to the balance and suspension.

I dont know how I missed this thread but MBUSA bought back a 2011 E550 because of a similar issue.
The bottom line was the fact that no other W212 we drove had this issue. They tried pretty much everything and they could not find a solution, so they bought it back and replaced it for free.

Here is a link to my thread https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...vibration.html

Wow. No problems since though?

I'm pretty sure mine is balance related. I had to take it back to the Indy once to redo and still didn't fix it. Then took to dealer and still there. Got a new tire since the dealer found it was out of round. Still there.

I'm gonna have to take it back and have them try again on the balance. If not that, check motor and trans mounts. I'm also wondering if the first guys did something to the suspension when lifting it. I noticed it right after the tire change so that's why it's probably related. Don't drive on highway much but it's hell now because I remember how locked in it was and now it feels like it's shuddering and shaking all the time at high speed.

The engine mounts in my 2012 collapsed at 24K miles. It depends on the forces exerted on them. They are a weak component and for some reason, MB refuses to make them durable.

I'm definitely getting the motor mounts checked now. Just took it back for the 4th and 5th times on the rebalancing and it still feels terrible on the highway and the vibration at idle seems to be getting worse. How much does replacing the mounts cost?