Hi All,


I have had my 09 Accord V6 EX-L for almost 6 months now. I love the car. It drives great, is comfortable, and gets pretty decent fuel mileage.
It has 115,000 miles on it roughly and newer (10K on them) Bridgestone Ecopia tires.


Since I purchased the car though, I have had a vibration in the steering wheel (it visibly shakes from side to side ever so slightly) at speeds of 55 mph and above.


I took it to my local tire shop and they told me that I had a bent rim and 2 tires where the tread was beginning to separate. The did not do any additional work to the car.


At this point I took it to another local tire shop who can fix bent rims. When I took it in, they did an inspection, and found nothing wrong. They went ahead and rotated and balanced the tires for me, but it made no difference, the vibration was still there.


I thought it was time to take it to the dealership to see if they could figure out what the issue was... After a front brake job, the vibration is still present. When the tech went out and test drove it he came back and said the vibration is being caused by the torque converter!!! They quoted me about $2000 to fix it.


I have never heard of a failed or failing torque converter to cause a vibration, let alone a vibration only at highway speeds. I have no issues with the torque converter locking up, or slipping.


I have read a few threads about torque converter issues, but I am not experiencing any of the issues that other members are complaining about.


Has anyone else experienced a similar problem or have any suggestions?

 

If the torque converter clutch slips during lockup or release, it causes a high frequency vibration (kind of like a buzzing sensation). This is called torque converter shudder. Normally when that happens you feel it through the seat of your pants and the floor besides the steering wheel.

But if it's just through the steering wheel, and fixing the bent rim and balancing/rotating the tires and doing brake work didn't fix it, I would lean towards bad wheel bearings, a bent CV shaft, or a bad CV joint. Do you hear any noises along with the vibration, or when turning sharply at low speeds?

 

No noises or anything. At slow speeds there is absolutely no drivetrain noise. The car drives great below 55 mph. I can visibly see the steering wheel moving from side to side rapidly when this is happening. It moves only slightly. You cannot feel the vibration anyplace else (or at least not yet).

 

I had one issue years ago that turned out to be a bad tire - a belt was squirming out of its proper position.

It drove me nuts for a little while. Sometimes it would feel like an out-of-balance wheel, other times simply the steering wheel slightly moving side-to-side. Balancing the wheels only helped for a couple days then it came back.

I thought I could see a bad belt, if I followed the car & watched while my wife drove it. Nope.

A tire shop with a Hunter GSP9700 machine (road-force balancing) could probably figure it out, but in my particular case those snow tires were getting worn out so I got new ones. That's when I could see the problem from the inside of the tire carcass.

 

I second the Road-Force balancing attempt; it *may* be one or more bad tires, however, I'm much more inclined to suspect the axles. In my experience, a Road-Force balancer will be able to identify a tire going bad, indirectly it *should* also be able to identify a bad axle as the imbalance becomes dynamic which in turn means the balancing machine will not be able to recommend a working balance solution.

 

He's had them rotated, so unless all the tires are bad, this is an unlikely scenario.
Find out which drive axle is bad, could be both.
Replace with only Honda units.

 

Units from Raxles [dot] com seem to get consistently high marks on Hondas as well.

 

Thanks everyone for the input.


First tire shop had a road force balancer, but I am not sure if they actually used it to determine if the tires were bad or not.


The second tire shop just had a regular balancer and rotated and balanced them for me.


I have talked to a few people about the torque converter shudder, and I do not think I have the symptoms. My steering wheel visibly moves, and I cannot feel any vibration really through the seat. The vibration is there no matter what gear I am in.


I think I have a wheel/tire issue or cv shafts. I may try to take the car back to the first shop with the road force balancer and see if they can help me out.

 

I missed the part about rotating the tires. If the problem didn't change when they were rotated, I guess a tire problem is a lot less likely.

 

Update for everyone. I went ahead and took the car in for another time to a local shop that has a road force tire balancing machine. The vibration is still slightly present, but it is much better than it was before. The steering wheel does not visibly shake anymore.


Once these tires need replaced (probably by the end of this year) I will be taking the car back and having a new set put on by the tire shop that did this work for me.