I have a 2003 Jaguar X Type and the steering wheel shimmies at speeds over 40. Sometimes it does not shimmy. I think it gets worse under coasting which is under no acceleration and no breaking. It also feels like when I turn at speeds above 20, if I turn the steering wheel back slowly or let it turn back on its own there is a choppy or shimmy feeling in the steering wheel. I don't know if this is related. I have balanced the wheels and it is no better. What could be causing this? I need help figuring out what the problem could be from.

 

Guernz, normally when the car starts a shimmy like you are seeing, it is 1 of 2 things normally. You have either an alignment of the front end that is now out or you have bent a rim and that is causing the steering to shake. I would first try rotating the tires front to rear and rear to front to see if the shimmy changes. If yes, then one of the tires now on the rear is bent and will need to be corrected. After that, get an alignment done.

After that, you may have a wheel bearing that is starting to go. A check of the wheel bearings will tell you if you have a problem there. After this, hard to say what you have as an issue.

 

Thanks. I have rotated the tires and had an alignment. Camber is out on one side. What does a bad wheel bearing sound like? There is a high pitched ringing that sounds like metal rubbing on metal at highway speeds with the window down but I think that is wind noise.

 

That noise could well be the wheel bearing, and could cause what you are feeling.
Jack up the car and grip the suspect wheel at 3o/c and 9o/c then see if you are able to make the wheel "move" by pushing and pulling at the position just mentioned.
If the wheel moves even slightly then the bearing is bad.
Also a bad ball joint or tie rod end could cause this, as could a wheel balance weight thats fallen off or an alignment done by someone lazy or with an out of calibration alignment machine.
Are there any abnormal wear patterns on any of the tires?

 

To Check you Wheel bearing watch the first 4 mins of this.

 

If you do find a bad wheel bearing you can change it yourself
here is a useful vid to show you whats involved.
The focus is very similar but I would loosen the control arm rear bolt remove the front bolt and swing the control arm out so as not to damage the oil filled bushing in the rear when removing the lower ball joint in the hub.

 

I've been having the same issue. Over the summer I had the right front wheel bearing replaced, along with a new ac compressor. ever since than I've had a shaky steering wheel at 65-75 mph, so I had the wheels balanced and front and back alignment, they said I had two bent rims and needed new tires, saved up for those, finally had new tires mounted on four good rims and balanced, and was told my front right toe was out just a hair. the new tires and rims did improve the shake, but it still comes and goes around 65-75. above 80 it's smooth and than at times it's smooth between 65-75. I was wondering could it be front struts? because when I'm going down the road on a windy day it feels like I'm all over the road. I also notice a light shimmy while braking, could all this be caused by warped rotors? ...I had also read that it could be axl's or unbalanced drive shaft.

 

Thanks. I hit a large pot hole, but am not sure if this caused the steering wheel to shake. I thought it could be in the tie rod, steering, bearing, axle, or driveshaft. Do the parts obviously look damaged?

 

Rotate the tires again. It is possible that if you hit the pot hole after the alignment, then you could have a bent rim. If the pothole was hit before the alignment, then I would be looking at the wheel bearing.

 

If your struts or strut bearing is bad that can cause that.
But you will probably have excessive tire wear on the inner edge of the tire.
If you replace the struts...i highly recommend replacing the strut bearings too... Mine were totally shot

 

I had similar problems. I had an alignment and wheel balancing done at a Firestone store. They said I had a bent rim. I replaced that. Vibration got a little better but still there. Mine was most pronounced between 55 and 65 mph. I spent a lot of time looking at bearings, struts, driveshaft, etc. Then I read a Jaguar TSB on this site about balancing Jaguar wheels. (TSB #XT204-02) It's ridiculously complicated and talks about "tire to wheel match mounting" and "radial force optimization." The main jist of it though, was the importance of radial force balancing on a Hunter 9700/ 9712 balancing machine. That machine also has a feature where it determines the "high spot" of each tire as it matches up to each wheel. The tire is then rotated on the wheel to where that spot matches up. It claims when Jaguars leave the factory, there is a paint mark at this spot on both the tire and wheel. It emphasises that this process must be done prior to the radial force balancing. Anyway, I found a local, small tire shop that had a Hunter 9700 machine. I printed out this TSB and took it to them. They had a good laugh as they read through it -it's about 5 pages long. Then I said, OK but what about this one thing of rotating the tire on the wheel to this "match" point. The manager said he was aware of the machine's ability to do this but he had never fooled with it. Anyway, I said humor me and let's try it. We did and vibration was completely gone.

 

Thanks. I hit the pothole before the alignment. One of my strut bearings is making a creaking noise when I turn the wheel all the way to the left and then turn it back and forth, but could the strut bearing cause a steering wheel shake? I also want to make sure that I say that the vibration is sometimes better than other times depending on speed. Is it possible that the wheel bearing is bad, but shows no signs because I have had all of the front suspension looked at and there were no problems. Maybe the mechanic is not doing what he should. I have had the wheels road force balanced by Firestone and have had them use the flange, but they did not match the tires. I have never had a balancing problem before so I do not think it is balancing. The tires are wearing on the inside, but they were doing that before I had the vibration.

 

Im betting front struts and/or strut bearings
I prematurely killed 3 sets of new tires thanks to bad struts and bearings
Replacing cured several symptoms including steering wheel shake

 

Guernz,
If you are going to replace the strut bearing then you may as wll replace the strut at the same time.
I got my strut from Rockauto.com part number (Bilstien) 22053619 $95.79 each
Strut Mount part number 908967 (monroe)$52,79 each

also you have to remove the knuckle to do this so you can check your wheel bearings off the car, if bad I recommend Timken WB000003 $32.79

Shop around though Amazon, Ebay may be cheaper or tirerack etc....
Bilstien is OEM for our cats

 

Is there a way to tell if the strut is bad?

 

Not definitively... If they have 30,000+ miles, then yes, they are bad!.
My fav new saying (from this site)
If you hear hooves, think horses not zebras

 

Thanks.