Finding vibration in front wheel well?

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ps2cho

Joined
Jun 13, 2016
Messages
97
Location
AZ
2019 Audi Q5 50k miles. Wife hit a road object on the right side. Rear wheel bent beyond repair, replaced it, but there is a vibration still.

I’ve determined it’s front passenger (side that got hit). Rotated the tires and same place so I know it’s not a wheel now.

When driving 70+ mph it has a cyclical vibration felt in the floor. However when turning at 70+ (ie changing off-ramp on freeway), the frequency of the vibration INCREASES. Speeds up and more harsh.

Without throwing parts at it, what else can I try to determine which part might be damaged?

PS: neutral at same speed does not change anything, so it’s road speed dependent.
 
Any part that rotate, like the rotor, wheel bearing and half shaft. Sometimes having someone spin the wheel while you look for runout works wonders.
 
You've had a saga, but this all feels like the same problem, or you got an Audi with a host of different vibes.

A user tried to follow up with you in May '23 for a thread started in Dec '22 but you vanished:

Object ran over - vibration. Places to look?

Just got the car back from Roadforce balancing. They said everything went well and a couple of wheels needed the bead adjusted along with a few other small adjustments. It says on the receipt: LF: +7 RF: -7 LR: -12 RR: -2 Its pouring with rain here today so cant get the car up to 80-90mph to...
bobistheoilguy.com

Meanwhile another thread was started March '23:

Does this sound like a bad tire?

Local America's Tire has the upper cap set at 26 ft lbs - 99% of tires will pass when they "road force balance." That's way too high for anything but a truck... I like to see max 12-14 on most things... anything under 10 should be fine on anything...
bobistheoilguy.com

So, does it matter which way you're turning at 70? I'd be inclined to think wheel bearing or axleshaft, but you do not want to be playing the parts cannon game with an Audi, as you said.

Do you have a dial indicator? You could check for endplay at the wheel or rotor. I gotta admit this is unlikely to show anything but it's free to check. Theoretically ANY endplay is too much.
 
D60 said:
You've had a saga, but this all feels like the same problem, or you got an Audi with a host of different vibes.

A user tried to follow up with you in May '23 for a thread started in Dec '22 but you vanished:

Object ran over - vibration. Places to look?

Just got the car back from Roadforce balancing. They said everything went well and a couple of wheels needed the bead adjusted along with a few other small adjustments. It says on the receipt: LF: +7 RF: -7 LR: -12 RR: -2 Its pouring with rain here today so cant get the car up to 80-90mph to...
bobistheoilguy.com

Meanwhile another thread was started March '23:

Does this sound like a bad tire?

Local America's Tire has the upper cap set at 26 ft lbs - 99% of tires will pass when they "road force balance." That's way too high for anything but a truck... I like to see max 12-14 on most things... anything under 10 should be fine on anything...
bobistheoilguy.com

So, does it matter which way you're turning at 70? I'd be inclined to think wheel bearing or axleshaft, but you do not want to be playing the parts cannon game with an Audi, as you said.

Do you have a dial indicator? You could check for endplay at the wheel or rotor. I gotta admit this is unlikely to show anything but it's free to check. Theoretically ANY endplay is too much.
Click to expand...

Yes I was chasing the tire for a while because I was convinced it was the tire, but finally having the time to spend on it I had another drive the car while I moved around all the seats and determined it was FR. So then I rotated the wheels and the noise stayed at the FR so sort of killed my bad tire theory, I just think the old tires masked the noise before and it’s just coincidence it started after the new tires

Ultimately I could just have it off to the dealer but it’ll be $$$. I’m more than capable of fixing it myself, diagnosis is always my weak point.
 
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Another free check: put a DI on the shaft near the outer boot and spin the wheel. I've never actually done this so NOOO idea what TIR might be. Compare to the other side if runout is found.

@Trav might have an opinion on if this would prove anything? Again I only suggest 'cause it's fast and free
 
Out of curiosity, do you have any kind of vibration/shimmy in the steering wheel? You mentioned that you “feel” it through the floor with no mention of the steering wheel. Do you feel it in your backside in the seat? I understand that you said turning at 70mph, but merging onto the interstate doesn’t require a lot of steering input. Regardless, the weight of the car is being shifted more to one side or the other when turning/merging.

You say that the front wheel was fine, but the rear was bent beyond repair. Since the rear wheel seemed to take the brunt of the impact, maybe you’re looking at the wrong corner because you assumed that removing the bent wheel fixed that corner. Maybe you have some severely damaged suspension in the rear.

I’m just throwing this out there because others have already mentioned what you need to look at up front. 🤔
If you get it figured out, come back and let us know. 🍻
 
HemiBenny said:
Out of curiosity, do you have any kind of vibration/shimmy in the steering wheel? You mentioned that you “feel” it through the floor with no mention of the steering wheel. Do you feel it in your backside in the seat? I understand that you said turning at 70mph, but merging onto the interstate doesn’t require a lot of steering input. Regardless, the weight of the car is being shifted more to one side or the other when turning/merging.

You say that the front wheel was fine, but the rear was bent beyond repair. Since the rear wheel seemed to take the brunt of the impact, maybe you’re looking at the wrong corner because you assumed that removing the bent wheel fixed that corner. Maybe you have some severely damaged suspension in the rear.

I’m just throwing this out there because others have already mentioned what you need to look at up front. 🤔
If you get it figured out, come back and let us know. 🍻
Click to expand...

No shimmy in the wheel no.

I have a quickjack - would you think it’s safe to put it up in the air and have a helper put it in drive and I watch and listen for anything?
 
ps2cho said:
No shimmy in the wheel no.

I have a quickjack - would you think it’s safe to put it up in the air and have a helper put it in drive and I watch and listen for anything?
Click to expand...
I do it on my 2 post a lot. You may get a Christmas tree dash for ABS, TC etc as it realizes wheel speeds don't make sense, but that's not a big deal.
 
ps2cho said:
No shimmy in the wheel no.

I have a quickjack - would you think it’s safe to put it up in the air and have a helper put it in drive and I watch and listen for anything?
Click to expand...

No, I wouldn’t bother doing that. Just inspect everything mentioned and inspect all suspension parts on the front and rear on the side of impact.
If you can’t find anything obvious, you’ll have to find a good shop and have them help figure it out. Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can get from a forum setting. (With that said, the advise and suggestions on BITOG is worth a lot most times)
If we had the vehicle sitting in our garage, maybe we could help more, but as it is, we can only guess.
I hope that you can get this resolved soon. 😉🍻
 
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D60 said:
I do it on my 2 post a lot. You may get a Christmas tree dash for ABS, TC etc as it realizes wheel speeds don't make sense, but that's not a big deal.
Click to expand...

Just did this right now- car up in the air and in drive going 10mph per the dash… When using a stethoscope, I believe I can hear some grinding noises on the passenger side and the driver side is pretty quiet. It’s not coming from the transfer case but in the knuckle, so I must assume that’s possible bearing noise?

Is it possible that there would be no play in the bearing, but grinding?

Everything else under the drivers side appears tight. I don’t see anything that jumps out at me…
 
ps2cho said:
Just did this right now- car up in the air and in drive going 10mph per the dash… When using a stethoscope, I believe I can hear some grinding noises on the passenger side and the driver side is pretty quiet. It’s not coming from the transfer case but in the knuckle, so I must assume that’s possible bearing noise?

Is it possible that there would be no play in the bearing, but grinding?

Everything else under the drivers side appears tight. I don’t see anything that jumps out at me…
Click to expand...
I really don't know myself...it's an Audi so the preposterous becomes plausible :)

I've always figured for most bearings there usually has to be some grinding before play develops....we just can't really usually detect the "grinding" or whatever it is that causes tolerances to open up.

That said, throwing a bearing at it sounds expensive? How about a stethoscope? For a free tool see:
 
Just updating - ended up being the driveshaft assembly including center support bearing front to rear. Dealership figured it out, drove it high speed on the rack to see it.

Baffled why it would change frequency when turning since it’s stationary, but it’s resolved. May have not even been related to the bent wheel in the end? Who knows. Seems a freak occurrence regardless.
 
Update of update: shouldn’t have trusted dealer comment they test drove..cyclical vibration still there BUT it’s better. I wonder if it has been a bad tire but the driveshaft has misdirected me. Going to move tires front to rear again and see if it moves next week!

What a weird issue. Does explain why driveshaft didn’t make sense to me about why the vibration speeds up when turning. Will report back next week.
 
update of update of update...
Dealer replaced the rear differential and subframe. They identified the noise at the rear differential and said it was traveling up to the front. I still dont really understand how a rear differential would cause vibration in the accelerator pedal especially when turning…but they've assured me its resolved this time. o_O

Let’s see…
 
  • Wow
Reactions: D60
:cautious: 4 weeks later, another AWD clutch…was the wheel bearing…

Finally resolved and drove it to confirm. My lord they threw the parts cannon at it.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: D60
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