Vibration in steering when braking

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

I have a 2006 Ford Freestyle, I am having vibration in the steering wheel.

Just had new tires, alignment, front rotors and pads put on. The vibration is still there. Would it be a stabilzer bar, struts or something else.

Thanks

2

Could still be a warped rotor. I’ve seen cheap white-box rotors warp in a matter of days, particularly if it’s been raining.

3

yes, it is stabilizer bar, struts, or something else.

Did the alignment shop check the front suspension parts when they did the alignment? Have the tires been balanced? Did a reputable shop do the work? with a good alignment rack? Or just someone with a tape measure?

4

Make sure the surface of the hub that mates with the rotor is wire-brushed clean, and the lug nuts are correctly torqued.

5

The brake shop could have warped the rotor by improperly tightening the wheels. If they used a circular pattern instead of a cross-star pattern that in itself could have warped a brake rotor.

The shop will deny doing this and blame the “cheap” rotor. Either way, I’d say a warped rotor is 90% certain to be your problem. Take it back and argue with the shop.

6

If the vibration only occurs when braking, my first guess would be a warped brake rotor (disk) or the lug nuts were not tightened evenly or somehow mis-aligned. The lug nuts usually have a conical shape which forces the wheel into the correct position, but sometimes that doesn’t all work, esp if they aren’t tightened up in three rounds.

If I had this problem I remove each of the wheels one at a time, and if nothing obviously wrong at that point, I’d re-install the wheels on the hub again. This time by following the correct torque tightening sequence, three rounds of tightening, in the correct star pattern, using a hand-held torque wrench. Moving the wheels around to different parts of the car can be diagnostic too, on problems like this.

1 Like
7

I had exactly the same issue after having tires installed by some shop: vibration was noticeable during driving, pronounced when braking. Re-tightening completely cured the problem, so I guess technician did not care about torquing pattern at all. Since that time, every time I go for tire rotation or balance: I routinely remove and install tires myself.

8

Here we go again . . .

There’s a fair percentage of people that seem to believe warped rotors are ONLY caused by mechanics overtightening lug nuts or some other mistake related to tightening the lugnuts . . . such as not following the correct sequence

That is not and has never been my opinion. Meaning I don’t think that’s the only reason.

Sure, that is sometimes the reason

But rotors also warp due to no fault whatsoever of the mechanic who worked on it last

I would say if THESE rotors are warped, it’s probably not because of lug nut overtightening