I was experiencing a shake in my steering wheel.

ANONYMOUS

MEMBER
2012 SUBARU WRX
9,000 MILES

I was experiencing a shake in my steering wheel while going about 60 mph. I investigated and dislodged some snow and ice from my wheels but also noticed that I had twice as many (10) wheel weights in my rear passenger wheel compared the the other three. This concerned me, however when I started driving again, the shake was gone.
What I want to know is if there is any reason I would have more wheel weights in the rear wheel? Even though removing the snow fixed the shaking, could me wheels still be umbalanced? I poked at the wheel weights and they seem to be on there very good, so being only a 7 month old car, I find it hard to believe I've lost 15 of them already.

1 Reply

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
33,871 POSTS

That's way too many weights if they're all on the same wheel. It's very rare to not need at least one weight per side per wheel. Sometimes mechanics don't have the right size so they'll put on two smaller ones that add up to the needed total. Three weights suggests the wheel balancer is out of calibration or has a bad bearing on the shaft. By the time you find a lot of weights, something else is wrong and was overlooked. You won't find a car coming from the manufacturer that way.

Ten weights means there is a huge balance problem. A bent wheel will show up as needing a lot of weight but while adding that much weight may satisfy the balancer, you're going to feel that when the tread is on the ground. The additional clue to a bent wheel is you'll find almost the same amount of weight on the inside of the wheel, halfway around it from the weights on the outside.

Also add up the weights listed on each one. It's not uncommon to need three or four ounces on an older wheel and tire, but new ones typically balance out with much less. You can expect a new car to come with one ounce or less per wheel per side. A one-ounce weight is just over an inch long.