shake in front end - could it be rims?- help luke

Luke, saw your threads and thought i'd ask a question. i installed new rims/tires on my caprice. a few weeks later i installed new rotors and brakes all around. after putting the car back on the road the front end was shaking so bad i could not drive the car. thought maybe it was the rotors, but alas, these are the new one's that don't need to be turned. thought maybe they could be bad anyway, i took them back and got another set, and still have the same problem. i've had the car tires/rims rebalanced by 3 different places and each one said it was off. what goes? how do you find somebody that knows what the hell they are doing. the car is now driveable, but still has a shake at around 60-70mph. any suggestions? sometimes the shake is more noticeable during rainy weather. any way to balance out rims that are not true without having to buys rims that are guaranteed true and paying out the nose for them? your expertise is greatly needed.

Debbie1, I'd recommend having one of our local installers take a look at your car. We're very picky about who we list as one of our recommended installers so you will be able to speak to an expert. Please go to the follow link and enter your zip code to find the closest one:


http://www.tirerack.com/installer/index.jsp

Your tie rod ends could also be going out. Might want to check that.

how much do new tie rods cost?

It depends. My roomate just had to buy 2 new ones(one for the left and right side) for his Silverado and they were like $150 or something like that I dont remember, that may have been for each.

Tie Rods are good, any other suggestions. I keep thinking it's got to be the rims themselves. Unless you buy an expensive set i.e, centerlines, etc.. You just can't buy a decent set of rims and expect them to be true. a friend of mine bought three sets of rims for his 69 camaro and it wasn't until the last set that he paid out the nose for that finally worked.

It could be that you need a set of hubrings for the car. A lot of OEM car wheels have the bore size in the wheel being the exact same as the hub size, which centers the wheel per the hub instead of the lugs. This prevents the wheel from shifting when you torque down the lugs. Most aftermarket rims have an overbored hub to fit a larger variety of hubs and or cars, thus here is where the hub rings come into play. The hub rings fill the gap between the wheel bore of the after market rims to the hub of your car, thus the wheel aligns per the hub not the lugs.
They should not cost that much, I think I paid oh about $6 for a set of 4.

What kind of rotors did you get? Did any the shops that mounted & balanced use a Hunter mount & balance machine?