kona0197

I have a slight wobble in the front wheel on a '90 Cutlass Ciera. Just the tire needing to be balanced on a bent axle? wobble disappears at highway speeds.

Sorry if this is not the proper sub-forum for this question.

oldcutlass

I don't understand the term wobble! Are you trying to describe a shimmy, vibration or does the car feel like its moving from side to side.

kona0197

Yeah it's a vibration coming from the front end. I can feel it in the steering wheel. at low speeds the wheel slightly jogs back and forth.

mur59

bad tire swap front to back see if it goes away

kona0197

I'll try that, thanks. I would assume if it was a bent axle I would have bigger issues. Just wanted to see what others thought about it.

Rickman48

Belts going away - check the date codes, you'll be surprised!

kona0197

Date codes? Where are those located?

Lady72nRob71

Wobble? Or waddle?

Here are some threads to help you out - I was down that road before...
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...le-waddle.html

I think tirerack's site has the date code decoder.
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...e-dilemma.html

QUACK, QUACK!!

kona0197

Thank you. I'll take a look tomorrow.

oldcutlass

What they said!!!!

scumdog

Just had to replace left/front tyre on our '83 Ciera, symptoms were just like yours, the steering-wheel had a rythmical slow 'shake' from side to side at 30mph and you could feel the car also doing a small shake.

Turns out the tyre was crapping out (tons of tread though) and it had two raised areas about 10" apart on the tread, hard to pick with the naked eye but obvious when the wheel was on the tyre balancer.

New tyre fixed that.

Trouble was the tyres are 205/55 x 16" - and it cost NZ $202 fitted!

kona0197

Well I found out that the tire has lost it's balance weight. Still waiting to get them rotated. My big question is will this wobbling break the drive axle? Or will the u-joint prevent that?

MDchanic

Naaaaahh. You're thinking too much. Just get the tire balanced and you'll be fine.
Best case scenario, really - be happy.

- Eric

72 cutlass455

On my 99 grand am i had a warped front rotor that caused some of the symptoms
you described. At high way speed it was fine but if I pushed it to 70 It was all I could do to keep it on the road. The same car also broke a front coil spring on the same side don't know if it was related or not. Good luck and do tell us what you find out.