Ok, another mystery has popped up. Now I can hear a noise, kind of like a deep, muffled popping noise at low speeds. It is loudest right before I stop and right after I take my foot off the gas. Is the balance issue causing this?
I think you have irregular tire wear which is caused by misalignment and aggravated by insufficient inflation pressure and insufficient rotation practices.
You fixed the source of the problem - the misalignment caused by bad tie rods - but the irregular wear remains. Rotate the tires and see if the problems (the vibration and the noise) move. If so, then leave the tires in that position until it is time to rotate again (5,000 to 8,000) miles. By then the tires just might have a new pattern worn into them and the problem will be gone. However, it is possible that the wear pattern is so bas you won’t be able to completely wear the old pattern off. In that case new tires is the only solution.
That sounds like an exhaust noise and not related to your vibration. Your description of your original problem tells me it is most likely an out of balance or out of round rear tire. Have your rear tires checked on a spin balancer and have the tech look at the tires for broken belts or other obvious defects. If they are cheap tires they may never really stay vibration free. I bought a cheap set of Korean tires once and despite constant balancing they just would not stop vibrating. I finally replaced them with name brand tires and the problem went away.
Hmm, that is interesting. I just bought the tires about 2 and a half months ago and had the alignment and tie rods replaced two weeks after that. The vibration seemed, as far as I can recall, started after the new tires, alignment and tie rods were installed. I am going into the tire shop today to have them balanced and get the alignment re done, as recommended here. I will have them inspect the tires as well since I bought them there.
I am confused: why do you think what I described sounds like an exhaust noise?
Just got back from the tire shop. The tires and balanced checked fine. They explained, during a test drive, that the new noise, actually more of a thumping noise than a popping noise, was caused by friction in my new brakes and will continue until they a broken in.
They also did an alignment. Also, they rotated the tires to see if the vibrations would stop or lessen. That didn’t help. What they showed me while my car was up on the rack was a motor mount that was moving and the cv shafts on the front axle. He said that the vibrations could be caused by either of those two things. I think that I failed to mention here that the whole car shakes, not just the steering wheel.
I’ve actually been thinking about the shop’s explanation of the thumping noise and I think that he wasn’t hearing the right thing. Friction wouldn’t be a thump, thump, thump sound would it? It would sound more like a grinding noise, right?
Score one for the spin balancers. The auto shop just cleared up the shaking in my car. It turns out that the right rear tire was improperly balanced. The shop took it off and sent it to a local shop and had it taken care of. No more shaking!
Also, he checked everything regarding the thumping sound and said that it is the strut wearing in and that the noise will go away as I drive it.