Rumble at 70-75mph only (new tires and several rebalances didn’t fix)

[Dino01]

Morning Bitog,

My 09 Accord v6 has a harmonic rumble at 70-75 only. It had it when i I acquired it from a relative so first thing I did was replace the old tires with brand new Michelin premier a/s, and even after a few rebalances at a couple different places, all agreeing with each other that the tires are perfectly balanced, the rumble persists. I also replaced all pads and rotors with new Honda OEM, and when doing some work took a look at the suspension pieces which also appeared perfect.

The car only has about 29k on it, and the VCM has been disabled for quite some time so it's not a VCM related vibration.

Any ideas brain trust? Can a bad alignment cause this? It seems to steer true but I know that's not always accurate

Thanks

 

[Oro_O]

With the car on stands in front, spin the wheels while grasping one hand on a coil and feel for vibration. 29k is pretty early for problems, but honestly this is where to start before blaming tires.

 

[2010Civic]

Might be worth a shot to replace the transmission fluid.

 

[Dino01]

I'll try Oro_o's suggestion as I did do a 3x3 atf drain and fill with DW-1 when I got the car 1500 miles ago

 

[BigCahuna]

Possibly a wheel bearing starting to gr getting dry,,

 

[Danno]

Possible bent rim, had that happen on new steel rims from Costco. After several attempts at balancing, rim was declared bent.
Painful experience ….

 

[sloinker]

Half shaft/CV joint comes to mind. Separated belt in a tire can cause this and still be balanced. Strange it's a Michelin as it usuuly occurs with Goodyears.

 

[Rand]

11 year old car, decide how much you want to jump into this.. or just let it go until it gets worse and easier to figure out.

 

[CourierDriver]

I think my
dad's generation had it right, every 2 years get a new car, but those days are gone, inflation, devaluation and poof, your car is worth 30 percent less just 5 miles down road..

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Originally Posted by Danno
Possible bent rim, had that happen on new steel rims from Costco. After several attempts at balancing, rim was declared bent.

This is it. I had the same problem with the wife's 03' Malibu, inherited from her 93 year-old mother in 2012, with only 25K on the odometer. When we brought the vehicle home for the first time, the most air any of the four tires had was 11lbs of pressure. My wife's mother lived near two sets of railroad tracks. One was 1-1/4 miles south of her and the other was 3/4 miles east of her.

My opinion is that those two sets of dilapidated railroad tracks, plus low air pressure for years, caused all four rims to have some degree of bend spots. Thus the steering wheel shook violently at freeway speeds and there was certainly road noise rumble.

 

[Dino01]

Bent wheel, cv/axle and wheel bearing came to mind, I didn't notice any play in the wheel bearings when jiggling the wheels when it was in the air, axles "seemed" fine as well, but it's certainly possible.

Wouldn't a bent wheel show itself at more than just a 5mph spread? I'd also think it would make balancing the wheels to spec almost impossible?

I do want to take care of this as the car is in perfect condition otherwise and runs great, especially since it has only 29k on it and the tires are brand new (it still had the original 2009 tires when I got it)

 

[R1jake]

I've been trying to figure out a issue like this on my E150 at the same speed. I've pretty much just assumed it's the crappy Goodyear wrangler tires. It's fairly minimal too so I've just stepped up the speed a bit 78/80 range.

 

[JHZR2]

Get a vibration analysis app for your smart phone - I use a free one called VibrationAnalysis. Take a reading at actual 60MPH and another at a recorded actual speed where the vibration is worst.

Verify your tire size's true rpm/mike rating. From there all it takes is math to determine what in the drivetrain is causing the worst vibration.

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/4891490/1

 

[wag123]

Check the motor mounts. Hondas are known for motor mounts going bad in about the 8-10 year-old time frame (the miles don't seem to matter).

 

[cronk]

Modern sealed wheel bearings dont always feel loose when they are going bad. I have had a few personally that still felt tight but were getting noisy.
The advise given above to spin the wheel while feeling the coil spring for the roughness is the method I have used in the past to pinpoint a bad wheel bearing.

 

[mk378]

Find a really flat surface like gas station tarmac and drive very slowly on it, feeling for any "once around" wobble from the wheels.

 

[2010Civic]

Can you find another set of similiar wheels/tires to try out? That should rule out a bad wheel or tire.

 

[OilUzer]

Originally Posted by JEL01
Morning Bitog,

My 09 Accord v6 has a harmonic rumble at 70-75 only. It had it when i I acquired it from a relative so first thing I did was replace the old tires with brand new Michelin premier a/s, and even after a few rebalances at a couple different places, all agreeing with each other that the tires are perfectly balanced, the rumble persists. I also replaced all pads and rotors with new Honda OEM, and when doing some work took a look at the suspension pieces which also appeared perfect.

The car only has about 29k on it, and the VCM has been disabled for quite some time so it's not a VCM related vibration.

Any ideas brain trust? Can a bad alignment cause this? It seems to steer true but I know that's not always accurate

Thanks


It maybe the tires. I have Michelin premier LTX on one car and it sometimes makes a very loud noise (rumble?) when it's cold (below freezing) till it warms up . Also little vibration over 40mph. vibration is all over the car ... I've had it balanced and force balanced a few times and finally gave up . The car never did that before the new tires. Old tires were Michelin also. after this, i read bad reviews about the tires lasting only 20K miles even though they are 60K tires ... I wasn't happy so I switched to Cooper tire for another car. First time ever not using Michelin. Most likely I won't go back to Michelin. I think they are overpriced. Cooper has been great so far 40K+ on it.

 

[Dino01]

Update and resolution:

After dealing with two different Costcos (where I bought the new Michelins) I got fed up and took it to True-line, turns out it WAS still WAY out of balance. Took them about 40 minutes and done, drove all over [censored]'s half acre and silent and smooth as silk. Figured this could help anyone else who may run into this issue, all it took was a good shop who actually knew what they were doing. While in there they told me the wheels were perfect and not bent and wheel bearings and axles were also perfect, as they should be on a Honda with 30k

 

[ABursell]

Not sure if you're in the same "Rainville" as me, but I also had an excellent experience with a place called TruLine with balancing a really expensive set of high performance wheels and tires I had on another vehicle. Expensive but worth it.

More recently I had a new set of tires installed on my truck. I had Michelins but decided to go cheaper this time (200k miles on the truck). I went through DT and left specific instructions for how I wanted the tires done. When I got the tires back the lowest had over 3oz of weight, while the others were 5-6+ oz. For highway tires. I'm sure they "balanced" on their machine fine, though when I questioned them they told me nobody can feel .5oz out of balance so they don't balance to 0, and it doesn't matter where the tire is on the wheel- the machine corrects for it. I know there is some truth to this, but I feel like I know a little about tires and wanted them done right. I talked to the manager and had them redone, aligning the red dot on the tire to the valve stem, and balancing to 0 with one of their more experienced techs. Result is that the wheel with the most weight is now 3oz, the others are much less. Feel great up to and over the speed limit. They might have been ok before, and maybe for most people they would have been fine. Whether I'm extra sensitive or just a big PITA, I wanted it done right and I'm not sorry.

Glad you got it fixed and glad you didn't give up. Wonder if you had techs with similar attitude to what I had at first.