I have 2000 Subaru Forester, automatic, that has been to a number of different mechanics in the past week. The answer I got from all of them is that they have no idea what is wrong! Although difficult to describe fully in words…here goes.
The car shakes pretty bad when going about 50 mph, at first when the gas peddle was pushed but after a while it happened even when the gas wasn’t being pushed. One mechanic said he got it to start shaking at about 27 mph. The car doesn’t shake all the time, seems to only do it after the engine has warmed up.
Any leads to what this might be would be such a great help!!
I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that one or more of your tires is out of balance. If your mechanics checked everything drivetrain related and didn’t find anything that would be my first guess. Are all tires matched? Do you go off roading and have mud/debris caked to the inside of the wheels (alloy?). That was a common post-offroading problem that I would have. If the temperature is below freezing, melting snow would leave “ice weights” in the inside of alloy wheels making highway driving almost impossible. It would drive normally until it hit the critical speed where the inertia of the added weight would overwhelm the balance of the tires and the car would really start shuddering.
Thanks for the reply! I just had brand new snow tires put on the car. I had the mechanics remount and reballance the tires 3 times after I noticed the shaking. One mechanic said it could possibly be the drive shaft, then another said it wasn’t the drive shaft because the shaking doesn’t happen all the time. I don’t take the car off roading at all so there should be no mud and/or snow buildup.
Did you have the “shaking” before the snow tyres were put on?
I noticed it once the day before the tires were put on. Going up hill at around 50 mph. Not nearly as bad, and it stopped within seconds.
That’s a real puzzler. I wouldn’t drive the car above city speeds until you find the cause. As a last resort, I’d have a tire shop mount 4 completely different wheels and tires for a test to see if it still shudders. You might try a different tire vendor than the one that put on the new snow tires to be safe. My money is still on the wheels/tires. Good luck.