The most common causes for this are tire imbalance or an issue with a tire or rim. For instance a bent rim, or a tire that is out of round. Both will show up as vibration or shaking. Commonly if you feel it in the steering wheel it is in the front, if you feel it more in the seat or floor it's in the rear. For a simple test I suggest moving the front tires to the rear and test driving it again, Steering is now smooth, but you feel vibration? Take the rear tires off one at a time and inspect them, look for obvious things like broken belts or bulges in the tire, then look at the rim, specifically the weights attached, they can slip, but a more common thing with the stick on types is that the tape fails and they just fall off. Things like out of round and bent or damaged rims are easier to spot if you can rotate the assembly on a solid point like a balancer or even using a front or rear axle by jacking it up and rotating the tire. Look for wobble or deformations. If it looks OK, strip off any weights and clean up the rim. Now balance it and see if you had to add more weight then you removed or in a different place.
Now with an AWD or 4WD you also have the front axles and hubs that can cause problems if they are worn or a CV joint is failing or binding. However I start with the tires.
Aug 30, 2025 at 1:55 PM
