75mph steering wheel shake?

i have a 2001 grand am V6. the steering wheel begins to shake at 75mph and continues to shake the faster you go. the wheel bearings are fine,the alignment is fine, every tire is balanced, the only thing i can think of is the suspension bushings need changed. o yea by the way it has 130,000 miles on it too.

any opinions would help out great....especially if this has happened to you!!!

I'd have that balance checked again.

A good fix, dont drive that fast.... :lol:

all the tires were just balanced because i thought it was causeing the shake....it helped it out a little bit but it didnt cure it completely. the tires are less than a year old to. i was just wondering if there are suspension bushings that tend to get bad after years of daily driving?

Could be the tie rod ends, balljoints...

The bushings are not something I've seen alot of wear,
though that can depend on the road conditions you drive on. But they can go bad, no doubt.

Jack the front end up, support it with jack stands and inspect the front suspension.

My 99 SE has 190K+ miles .
The only thing I've had to replace(suspension wise) were the tie rod ends.
They were sloppy and one missing the dust cap, which contaminated the grease causing it to wear faster.

Hope that helps.

when i drive over a bump it makes a light thunking noise......does that sound like a ball joint or a tie rod to you??

it is possible you have bad struts and stut mounts
can you push the front of your car down easly?

I had this same thing happen to me and it turned out to be my tires. At 90k miles I had 4 of the the original equip Good Year Eagle RS-A tires put on and I started experiencing the shake at approx 110k miles. So yes, those horrible tires lasted me only 20k miles which was over the course of approx 10-12 months! Another symptom that I had with the tires was that the front driver side tire would squeek at low speed when I would drive through my neighborhood. Apparently the rubber had fatigued and the tire was slipping on the wheel. Not knowing that the 75mph shaking was realted to the squeek, I was very suprised and happy to feel the shake vanish when I had 4 new Goodyear Assurance Triple Treads put on. The new tires are rated for 80k miles and they were waay cheaper than the RS-As.
Try driving slow with the windows down and see if you can hear the "rubber on metal" squeek like I did. Hope this helps.

'01 GA GT 3.4L V6

it is possible you have bad struts and stut mounts
can you push the front of your car down easly?

i can hear the struts make noise when i drive out of a alley over a bump....i kind of think it might be my struts but i dont know why it would wait till 75mph to start shaking

I had this same thing happen to me and it turned out to be my tires. At 90k miles I had 4 of the the original equip Good Year Eagle RS-A tires put on and I started experiencing the shake at approx 110k miles. So yes, those horrible tires lasted me only 20k miles which was over the course of approx 10-12 months! Another symptom that I had with the tires was that the front driver side tire would squeek at low speed when I would drive through my neighborhood. Apparently the rubber had fatigued and the tire was slipping on the wheel. Not knowing that the 75mph shaking was realted to the squeek, I was very suprised and happy to feel the shake vanish when I had 4 new Goodyear Assurance Triple Treads put on. The new tires are rated for 80k miles and they were waay cheaper than the RS-As.
Try driving slow with the windows down and see if you can hear the "rubber on metal" squeek like I did. Hope this helps.

'01 GA GT 3.4L V6


my tires are less than a year old(got them last december) and they were put on at sears.....ive never had trouble with the tires slipping on my rims..and i dont hear them squeal.

ill dig into it some more....it could be alot of things or just some stupid thing...make sure there is not brake dust buildup or anything like that on your rims

Some tires are just plain bad and canot be balanced for all speeds. Usually the bab spot will reveal itself around sixty MPH though. Sinsce you say you have checked everything else I believe your issue actually lies with the brake rotors. The brake rotors can be damaged by over torquing the lug nuts very easily on these vehicles. Mine would begin shaking at freeway speeds and get worse the faster I drove. I too thought it was tire or suspension related but I went ahead and installed some new Wagner rotors and now the wheels spin perfectly true at all speeds.

see i had warped rotors but i replaced them about 3 months ago.....i have duralast ceramic pads on all four brake disc's....this weekend i might go ahead and switch the front two rotors...as for over torque on the wheels i have aftermarket rims and i torque the lugs to around 130 ftlbs....if i torque less than that they will slowly come loose.

i am goin to exchange my front rotors for new ones since there under warranty.......what do you recommend i torque the lugs to???

100 Ft Lbs !!

That 130 FTlbs is probly what warped your rotors!


...and caused the shaken'

the only thing that sux is i have aftermarket rims and the lugs come loose if i only torque to 100ftlbs........then again there is always threadlocker

If you are torqueing to 100 ft/lbs and the lugs come loose, replace the studs. Sounds like they have been overtorqued one too many times and they are stretched.

Yeah I agree, sounds like they are bad...

... I'm realy surprised they didn't just break off when you torqed them to 130 Ft lbs.

well i dont really want to go replacing the studs until i find out for sure what is wrong with the car....but if it is the rotors causing the shaking can i get by with using locktite on the studs until i have enough time to replace them?

o yea and when i ordered the rims off of wheelmax.com they sent me special lugs that take a special socket...could it just be the lugs they sent me that are streched? im pretty sure the stock lugs are too big to fit in the wholes on the rims...by the way the rims i got have been on the car for over 2 years now.

well i changed my rotors and got the wheels rebalanced.....the wheel still shakes. could there be something loose in the rear suspension and it make the steering wheel shake??

could i have a rack and pinion issue? there is some play in the steering wheel, i can move it back and forth a little bit with the engine off.

I wouldnt think anything in th erear would cause your stteering wheel to shake :grinno:

A CV joint, bad coil springs, or bad strrut could cause excessive shaking.

Could be a bad rim even.....
R & P wouldnt realy cause shakin....

What brand of rotors are you using ??
Not autozone brand I hope... (they are crap!)

Did you replace those studs ??

i know my struts are going back since they make noise when i come out of a alley. i have always went to autozone for brake rotos for all my other cars and havent had a problem...i got new rotors yesterday and the shaking is still the same!

i didnt change the studs but i highly doubt it is them....

when i sit in my car with the engine off and turn wiggle the steering wheel back and forth i hear a thunking noise......what does that sound like to you?