I had the problem with my steering wheel shaking at high speeds and saw in the DIY section that it was probably becuase unbalnced tires. My tire treads also though, are extremely worn out towards the inside of the tire and not the outside and I read somewhere that was because of alignment problem. I was wondering could it be that the uneven wear could be causing the shaking and not unbalanced tires? Is there any way I can eliminate one of the two services to solve both problems or do I need to get both done?

 

when they do an alignment they typically re-balance the tires if you request it... However, if the inside of the tire is wearing faster than the outside then you do have a camber issue. Your alignment is off... Question 1: are they stock tires/rims stock size? or have you changed them? Also, have you rotated your tires lately? How noticeable is the wear difference?

 

yes your uneven tire wear has created an unbalanced tire. bad news.....the uneven tire wear is probably from bad lower ball joints.. unless the car has been lowered

 

sir_nasty - Yes the tire/rim is all stock size for 97 accord. The wear difference is pretty bad actually, on the inside its almost bald and outside the wear is good.

lightshow - car is not lowered, so are you saying that alighment is not going to fix anything or that I have to get alighment done and replace lower ball joints?

I will be able to take it to the dealer next week sometime for inspection of the suspension components.

 

what's up i read your post and i think i could help i work for a tire shop and i see these kinds of issues come in all the time the best thing that i could recomend you to do regardless of your wheel size is replace your worn out tire with some new ones and then get your aligment done. make sure you go to a reputable tire shop because ive seeen people come to us after getting brand new tires put on complaning that their car is shaking more than half of the time its dew to a bad balance after having them put on get them aligned as soon as possible after that your problem should go away

 

its not for sure that the ball joints are bad but im pretty sure of it. they will have to be replaced, you will need new tires, and then the alignment will need to be done. then youll be all set. as far as camber goes, which is the problem that you have right now (negative camber), there is nothing to adjust on a honda, so when there is a problem, it means that there are bad suspension parts

 

Ok thank you for the help, I guess I will go get the joints replaced. Do you know what is a good price to be charged for replacing them?

 

dont just get the joints done. when you take it in they will be able to tell quickly if they are bad. id say maybe like 5 or 6 hundred to get them done but im not absolutely sure

 

What else would I need to get done then? the whole front suspension components?

 

No, but I think the idea is your wheels could be out of alignment without the ball joints being bad, so just going in to get them replaced could be a very unnecessary expensive mistake. Just get them checked first.