02 Taurus Bad Vibration

I have a 2002 Ford taurus that hasdeveloped a bad vibration in the front end somewhere. It is definately not in the engine as I have put the car in neutral at 70 mph and the vibration is still present. You can hear it even at 20 mph and it progressively gets louder and more intense. The steering wheel has (some) vibration but not a lot. I have noticed at 60+ mph if I turn the wheel to the right there is no change in the vibration but if I turn to the left the vibration gets louder and more intense as the weight of the car pushes down on the right front side. I took the wheel off and nothing seems loose, the cv joint boot is tightly sealed. I did notice that the inside of the tire was extremely worn with steel showing only on the inside. the rest of the tire had nice deep tread. The same thing on the drivers side, the inside of the tire worn to the point of steel showing on a tire with 30,000 miles on it. I am thinking some kind of alignment issue to do with the camber but I am no expert on the issue. Any suggestions of what it could be.

Does anything seem loose with the weight of the car off of the tire, but with the tire and wheel still mounted (using the leverage of the wheel and tire to wiggle)? You want to be sure the ball joints and tie rod ends are still tight.

You may have a wheel balance issue (maybe a wheel weight recently fell off), a bent wheel, bad wheel bearing, bad CV joint, and possibly an alignment issue. However, if you have any loose suspension components, they are likely to cause the car to be out of alignment.

If your issue were only a wheel balance issue, I would expect the vibration to be very noticeable in the steering wheel.

From your description, I would suggest that your car is not safe for highway speeds, inspect the suspension and steering closely. If you don't find anything, have a professional inspect it closely before driving it any more than absolutely necessary. If nothing else, your tires are not safe for highway speeds. Keep in mind that it's not just your safety that you are potentially risking.

-Rod

you can feel it in the steering wheel a little bit, but not much. I jacked the card up and wiggled everything and nothing seems loose. I think its a alignment or tire issue possibly. i am going to take it to the shop and see if they can find out anything. I do remember putting "fix a flat" in a tire not too long ago. can that throw a tire out of balance?

Loose ball joints are sometimes hard to see by wiggling the tire. Usually you'll need to use a long rigid bar under the tire to see if there is play. I'm not even going to attempt to describe the process because I'm sure there are many different ways to do it. However, it has to be pretty bad before wiggling it by hand will show much.

I try to stay away from Fix-A-Flat. I suspect that could cause an issue, but I'm not positive on that. When you get new tires put on (or have these removed from a wheel for whatever reason) please be sure to let the shop know that a tire has Fix-A-Flat in it. There is an explosive risk when breaking the bead.

-Rod