My Steering Wheel Shakes at High Speeds - Why?

You are cruising around town and your car is running fine. You jump on a highway and speed up to the flow of traffic. Suddenly, the steering wheel gets a vibration and starts to shake a bit. Why is this?

Your car is an amazing vehicle. Talk to an enthusiast, mechanic or sales person and they can spend hours telling you about all the intricate technology and gadgets incorporated into the vehicle. This is true for even the cheapest cars available these days. All of the technological advances, however, can't hide one key thing - the most important area of the car is where the tires meet the road.

Depending upon your vehicle and tires, the total area contacting the road may be as little 4 by 4 by 1 inch if you count all four tires. That small contact area will support a car weighing a thousand pounds or more. The key to getting a smooth ride is to making sure the car balances correctly on those four contact areas.

When the balance goes out of whack, the ride becomes rough. When it is the front tires that have a problem, your steering wheel will vibrate and shimmy. There are two common causes of this. Either the tire is out of balance or you've bent a rim. Let's take a closer look.

Your tire is made of rubber. How's that for an obvious statement? Regardless, it means the tire is not perfectly round or will go out of round slightly for a host of reasons. The issues can be as simple as low air pressure to a shape change from whacking a pot hole/curb/small tree. When this occurs, the balance of the tire goes bad and it will wobble slightly at higher speeds. You will feel this wobble in the steering wheel as a shaking. To correct it, get the tire balanced at a local tire store.

The second cause of steering wheel shakes at high speed is the bent rim. This is much more common than most people would expect. How do you bend rims? It is pretty easy. You could hit a pot hole. You could hit a sudden upwards elevation change on a street that is being worked on. Hit it fast enough and you can bend a rim going over steel plates...railroad tracks...the list is nearly endless.

The bad news is there is no quick and easy fix for a bent rim. Well, actually there is - buy a new rim. The problem is a new rim costs good money, particularly if the dealer has an exclusive deal on the rims. You could try getting the rim re-finished, but it rarely works and can actually weaken the rim in some cases. In short, it is best to just pony up and pay for a new rim if the shaking bothers you enough.

If your steering wheel shakes at high speeds, the good news is your car is not falling apart. It might be as cheap and simple a fix as getting a wheel rebalanced. On the other hand, you might have to pony up for a new rim, but that's a lot less costly than fixing a steering system or suspension.