The only experience I have had with wheel bearings is when I changed the offset on the rims..... I would think that the SRT Engineers thought about the weight issue when putting in bearings.... As far as lowering, this should not have any adverse affects on te wheel bearings.

 

kind of my vien of thinking as well, but i am looking for insight from others to gather as much info as possible. thanks ron..... btw, how is the sled coming?? :grin:

 

Chris, that sucks. Sounds like the problem came back. Did they balance the tires the last time you had it in?

 

the dealer did not when they replaced the front rotors again. the shimmy this time is a bit different though. feel it more in the entire car, not so much in the stering wheel. that is why i posted this thread. outside of wheel balance, i am not sure what else it could be?????

 

This sounds more like the issue 95ttoplt1 was experiencing. I might be wrong, but I think his was more like what you are feeling. It would be nice if there was a definitive answer as to what is causing this. Some people get their tires balanced and it goes away, while others seem to still have the issue after balancing.

 

Legmaker (Chris?)

Who is your dealer in town?

Kent

 

kent - yes, legmaker = chris :grin:

my dealer is napleton dodge in kissimmee. been pretty good to me so far, but they did seem to thow a bit of a red flag up the last time in about the shimmy when they saw the car being lowered. another reson why i am looking to get as much info as possilbe from everyone here before it go further.

 

My opinion is that wheel-balancing is an art; some balancing machines and operators are better than others. If one shop doesn't do it "right", ask around for recommendations and try another shop.

 

chemi - i would agree...... the placei recently purchased a lifetime road force balance agreement with here in town is one that i have trusted with past cars and aftermarket wheels. i am going to have them do things again this weekend. i want to try and eliminate all possible varibles before i go the bearing route with the dealer. especially since the car is lowered via kw's, i want to make sure that i have factual and valid arguments and rebuttals to any possible push back i get from the dealer. :grin:

 

The extra weight of a heavier wheel would have some effect but hard for them to prove. Lowering the car would have no effect. The only real mod that would affect wheel bearing life would be a wider offset wheel.

You can check the bearings your self. Jack up the wheel you are checking and place one hand on top and one on the bottom, try to wiggle the wheel(top in bottom out and visa a versa). Or take it to a local shop and pay them 50 bucks to check them out and then take it to the dealer with a 3rd party diagnosis to go on.

I wouldn't be surprised if yours are bad, they are back ordered right now though, so it seems there are quite a few being replaced.

 

A cars wheel bearings are typicaly in this arrangement:

If you have misalignment during installation or misuse you get excessive wear where the ball path is widened and deepened, the balls will elongate and cause vibration...Or if contaminants are present within the ball path causing "speed bumps" for the balls, this will also cause vibration...when i say vibration, i mean extremely rapid and ALL the time...not a some time deal. You would also get some float feed back through the steering. Your problem doesn't seem to be the wheel bearings failing premature. Sounds more like loose suspension some where...just a guess.

Keep us posted Chris, good luck buddy!

 

kyle - just the type of response i was hoping for! thanks partner! i went and had all four wheels road force balanced today and things are a little better, but it is still there just a bit. no where near as bad, but still there. i will be putting her in the air tomorrow and checking all of the suspension points where i changed things to the kw's. after that, i will just cross my fingers the dealer doesn't give me a bunch of crap becasue of the lowering.

 

I get this same vibration. I don't have the new rotors yet, car had too many miles when the TSB finally came out. Problem was fixed temporarily after I finally took the car to a Goodyear shop and they balanced the tires. Well the shack/shimmy is back. Once again around 75-80 mph. But now it is different. Sometimes it wont shake at all. Sometimes it will start shaking and not stop after I go over the lane marker bumps. And now when I hit the brakes at said speeds the car shakes a lot. But there is not shake if I hit the brakes at 100 until I get down to 80. Then I let off the brakes and reapply around 70 and no shake. I am baffaled and know that my dealer will do nothing to help me. The whole legal issue about them driving over the speed limit and won't take my word, they have to be able to reproduce the problem themselves.

Man I guess all maintanence guys are like this. I get the same feedback from aircraft guys with the CND, Can Not Duplicate

Anyway, I am going to pay to replace the rotors myself, hoping that fixes the shaking while braking issue. I have a feeling though that my suspension may be loose or broken somehow, but how do I get the dealer to fix if they all play the CND card due to low speed limits here in the Sacramento, CA area?

 

Simple fix to reproduce the issue with the dealer.... Take the tech on a drive with you driving.... I had to do this with the wifes SRT10.........

Good luck.

 

Dookie, Im not sure what your trying to say about wheel bearings. One thing is for sure. No cars chrysler sells uses "ball" bearing wheel bearings. They all use Tapered Roller Bearings and two of them set reverse to each other to take both rolling loads and thrust (side to side loads).

 

The relationship that lowering would have on the bearings would be if the camber changes. Camber changes can put excess load on wheel bearings.

 

kinda what i was wondering..... i have noticed a bit of "excessive" camber in the front wheels as the carhas "settled" over the past few months. do they make a camber kit for our cars for the front????

 

they have a speed shop here that can balance the wheels ON THE CAR up to 120mph (iirc). supposed to be THE way to go