car vibrates bad!!! PLZ HELP

I have a 95 turbo tsi awd, i can crank threw 1st 2nd and no probs, but when the speed gets up to about 50 the car starts shaking really bad but when i let off the gas it calms down then back on the gas it shakes like crazy, i am thinking its my drive shaft, being its a 2 piece shaft with them being splined together i am thinking they are froze together and its making it run like its out of balance. any suggestions???


THANX ERIC

Talon69;
Can you go past 50 MPH, or does it get progressively worse? When it vibrates, does the steering wheel shake, or is the vibration more or less felt through the whole car? It could be something as simple as a tire out of balance, perhaps one of your balance weights came off. Another thing that can happen and cause some very strange things to occur is if you break a belt, or your belts separate on one of your tires. Typically the belts breaking or separating can cause peculiar, and different behavior at all speeds though. Have you noticed any other differences in the way your car feels or handles lately?

Mark

I put 4 different tires and rims on the car yestarday and still did it, you can barely feel it in the sterring wheel and it feels to me the whole car is shaking, and yes the faster i go the worse the shaking gets.
I think its the driveshaft froze on the the splines so its not allowing it to move properly, i dont have garage and its 40 below zero here right now with the wind, but i have talked to some garages and they said the 1st place they would look would be the driveshaft. The car handles fine just shakes really bad when you accelerate past 50 and goes away when you let off the gas, so it makes me beleive its the driveshaft

Talon69;
I can go along with it being drive shaft related, but I don't think the splines being frozen together would do what you're describing.

You say it's 40 degrees below zero where you are? Brrrrrr! Some odd things can happen during the winter months with ice. I've had issues with my car shaking on the expressway during the winter years ago, but it was actually the result of packed up snow getting lodged inside the wheels and throwing the wheels off balance. A trip to the self spray wash fixed that. You say though that you just put 4 different tires and rims on the car, so that rules that out.

It is actually possible that the bolts have come loose on the back flange where the drive shaft connects to the rear differential. I don't have a book on your year car, but I'm pretty sure the back u-joint is connected to a 4 bolt flange that bolts up to a flange on the differential. It could also be one of the u-joints, but typically you will notice this at all speeds if a joint is going bad, they usually squeak or making a rubbing noise (for lack of a better way to describe it).

I definitely think it's worth checking those rear connection bolts. I know you probably aren't inclined to crawl under your car right now, but bringing it to a shop and having it checked out, and tightened up if necessary, shouldn't cost very much. BTW, this actually happened to me on an old car I had.

Mark

Hey thanx for helping what you can, i Brought my car to my buddies garage this morning and we allready checked out the botls and even diconnected from the rear pumpkin and tried to pull the shaft apart and couldnt do cannot heat it up right there either cuz it will ruin the carrier bearing.
Now what i have just found out today from somebody else at a garage they had a 99 awd come in and did the same thing as im descibing, they were telling me with the splines froze the shaft cannot go the right degrees it has to run when under power or suspension movement, i think monday im gonna get another shaft complete, found one at a big time known junkyard and they had a 98 awd that had 32,000 miles on it and can get the complete shaft for $225 but just trying to get everyone opinion before i spend that kind of money.

Eric

oh and back to the cold weather yes its cold, cuz if i dont leave my car plugged in all night with a block heater it will not start :(

Talon69;
Well, at least you've identified the problem. Too bad it wasn't just loose bolts or something though! I guess $225 isn't really that bad, cars parts aren't cheap.

Mark

I will let you know if that was exactly the problem when i get it changed so you can use this to help more people in the future.

Thanx Eric

sry for late reply, but it turned out it was the driverside front cv shaft, very strange would vibrate the hell out of the car but you really couldnt feel it on the steering wheel and the shaft never made any noises.

Eric

Talon69;
Thanks for sharing that. I wouldn't have guessed the CV joint, particulary because you would expect to feel it in the steering.

Sometimes these problems can be really difficult to pinpoint. I had a problem with my car when it had about 160,000 miles on it. I was getting vibration at highway speeds, like a tire was out of balance. Also, I was getting a sort of a rubbing noise, and a rubbing or scrapping feeling at very low speeds, which felt as though it was coming from the front of the car. I had the tires balanced, no help. I tried moving front to back, same thing. I found my drivers side CV boot had split open, so I changed both CV joints, didn't help. I even jacked up the front end of the car up and held one tire at a time with the car running while in gear, to see if one of the tires was wobbling or out of round, everything looked fine. The tire tread was fine also, no signs of irregular wear or anything like that.

The problem seemed to be getting progressively worse, and I was very close to pulling the transmission. While I was under the car I noticed the inside of the side walls on the tires were starting to show signs of dry rot, they were beginning to crack, so I decided to get a new set of tires. Problem solved!

Mark

This might sound silly but its tru, I'm not sure where you live but excissive snow build up in the fender wells will do that, you've probally all ready checked that, but just in case :)

yea its the driveshaft. my car had that problem for a while when i would get up to 80mph. but i took it in and it was the drive shaft.

Thanks for the reply babe but look at the date of post lol allready taken care of and it was the cv shaft