Took my CPO 2005 E55 with 4,500 miles on it to the dealer, I've had it about a week. The steering wheel vibrates at around 60MPH on the highway, very annoying. They balanced the tires and said it was fine.

No deal same thing, still vibrates.... I called today and said it was doing the same thing, and now he wants me to take the shop foreman for a ride. I think it's the tires, should they replace them for free being a CPO car?

Even if they get them to balance, if they are flatspotted, it would only show when under load at certain speeds, correct?

thanks....

 

.......you can try something called a high speed balance by an alignment shop after confirming that you tires are not simply "out of round" from cold weather. The high speed balance resolves the problem of vibration at high speed. Other possibilities include a slight bent rim and you have aftermarket rims, you want to make sure that it is hubcentric and not lugcentric. My CLK32, the exact same symptom was caused by a tire shop forgetting to use the hubcentric in the right front wheel when they replaced my tires on the LM6 rims. The problem is that if the exact cause is not discovered and you buy new tires, the symptoms will probably go away for a while while your tires are new.......making you think that it was the tires.

Ted

 

alignment being off can cause that, too. as could placement of the weights when it is balanced. Take it to a nice shop that can check it on the car.

 

they did an alignment and re-balanced the wheels and tires.... being a CPO car that is one week in my posession, I feel like the dealer should take care of this.....

 

They should, even if it means new tires, rims, whatever. Make em swap out some stock rims and tires to see if that cures it just to find the root cause.

 

What kind of tires? I had Contis which did that from the factory. Replaced with Michelin PS2s and solved the problem. It is well known to MB that there is a problem with flatsiding of Contis in transit from Germany. They will replace them I believe but will only replace with Contis. I told them to keep the Contis.

 

yea, they are the continental tires..... guess we'll see how the manager ride goes....

BTW, first thing in the morning, it's really bad, get's better after driving a while, but still shakes...

 

also mention to the dealer to tighten up the rack, there is a 17mm bolt on the rack that when tightening (only a 1/8 a turn) will tighten the rack and thus cause the vib in the wheel to disapear. You will feel more in the road as far as bumps, grooves ect.. but it is worth it. just a sugestion.

 

If my car sits a while (usually a couple of days or weeks), it will have some nasty vibes from flatspots on the tires. It gets better after I get some heat in the tires. This is with the stock Contis.

 

The shop manager took the car for a ride with me in it last week, saw the steering shake in his hands at 60MPH..... he said they would look at it again...

they called today and said they are going to replace the front tires, because they are "out of round"....

I'm pretty sure this will resolve the vibration, but should I be concered about the rear tires?

what symptoms would "out of round" rear tires produce?

is it likely that the front tires are bad, and the rears are fine?

thanks!

 

It causes a vibration felt in your seat. My fronts were the culprit and I replaced them with PS2 then abused the rear Contis for about 5k miles and replaced them with 275 PS2. If I would have known how much better the traction with the PS2 had I would have done them at the same time.

 

Had same problem. Replaced SO3's with 9k miles with PS2's and problem solved.

 

dealer ended up only replacing one front tire..... vibration is still there.... I just can't belive they would return the car with it still vibrating and say everything is ok.....

my feeling is that if one tire is out of round, they all are.... the car was one year old, and only had 4,000 miles..... the car probably sat for months at a time..... making the tires out of round....

very annoying that they won't just replace them all already....

 

take it back to them and have them fix it

 

after replacing the tires, doing an alignment and speed balancing, i was told my issue was a combo of warped rotors and a bent rim. lol

 

I had the same problem with my 2005 e55. THe conti's tires suck!!! They are all out of round. After changing to s03 the car drives perfect. The dealer changed my tires 3 times in the front. Once at 400 miles, second at 1000 miles and 3rd at 1840.

 

sounds like a lemon to me

 

 

dealer wouldn't put anything else one but the conti's though... right?