sincitys4

During acceleration at about 60mph, my car vibrates. ESP light goes on and causes the car to decelerate for a moment until wheels stabilize. I got new axles and the wheels balanced. Does anyone know if wheel bearing will cause this as well? or If you can give me input on what you think I should look at?

Thanks in advance!

Eric

EuroXS4

I have a feeling you have abs sensor that is disconnected.Or someone crushed a abs sensor when they put the new axles in.Seen it before.

Hope this helps. See what faults you have in abs.

Chris's S4

The vibration is what caught my eye... jack up the car, set it down on some jack stands, now grab a hold of either rear wheel and pull out towards you, and push in, also grab the top and the bottom now wiggle... also do that on the sides, if there's ANY movement. It's the wheel bearing. Do this for all wheels.

Are you sure your wheels are perfectly balanced? I've had guys do a half *** job on balancing before.. had to go back due to vibrations and drone sounds, cuz of the tire bouncing.

Good luck...

man that sucks... Hopefully thats the case cuz it's a whole lot easier to fix.. but on the other hand, this wouldn't cause the wheel vibration that he's talking about. Unless it wasn't balanced properly.

sincitys4

Chris - I'm going that sound more like the cause. If it was my ABS, I'd have a fault sensor on my instrument cluster. Wondering how hard it is to change wheel bearings???

Thanks for the input EuroXS4... but I don't think its the ABS. The vibration, when I WOT, triggers the ESP, ends up slowing the car down until it stabilizes.

Do you know if upper control arms can cause vibration as well???

Chris's S4

Upper control arms or any for that matter cause clunks. Like in mine I got bad rubbers in between, so if I launch or take off a little to hard, you'll hear the front right wheel clunk then clunk again when it relaxes usually from braking to a stop.

As for wheel bearings, it's time consuming. But if you have the tools, then it's not to terrible. You gotta remove the entire wheel hub, then you'll need a press, to press out the old bearings, and then press in the new ones.

I haven't done this yet, but have read about it and seen the photos. There's a thread on here or inside the tech files about it. Very helpful and it's in which I speak of.

Removing the wheel hub means, removing the axle, brake lines, abs sensor *side note, brake calipers. Then comes the fun part of the suspension. lol It's not bad, just take your time in doing it type of thing.

*side note: The abs sensor can be a real bitch, mine took me a 1.5hrs on just the right one, and in the middle of that, I got the hang of it and took out the left one. Left one came out before the right and the right was still on the 1.5 hr time alone. There's one bolt that holds the sensor to the wheel hub.
When you go to remove it, try to twist it gently within the housing that way it'll help brake loose anything that's in between the sensor and the hub housing. If your lucky and it's not rusted to the hub... it'll be out in no time.

IF YOUR NOT.... lol it'll be a bitch... I used channel lock pipe pliers and wd40, you'll have to grab the very base of the unit also do not squeeze the base. you'll merely looking to get a twisting action back and forth on it to get it moving. Once it'll twist, now you'll have to pull sideways being the pliers are sideways all at the time as your twisting. It's a long process if it rust has really pressed it against the hub walls like mine. Once out inspect and clean the inside of the hub and sensor.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

I added the how to, as a just in case the questions pop up later. hahaha.... Good luck bro.

Chris

EuroXS4

To be honest I dont think a wheel bearing would cause the esp to come on.I would just check for faults.If esp is coming on you will have faults for sure.You wount necessarily have sensor fault in the cluster saying so.Not saying thats the case but its easier to check the faults to see whats available to try and narrow down to the problem if no faults exist then i would recommend checking wires abs unit communication with abs unit and things of that nature.

If the wheel isnt balanced properly it will cause a vibration without a doubt but a unbalanced wheel wount cause the esp light to come on.Just trying to help.I've been around these cars for quite some time.So been there done that best of luck let us know what you find.

Dank713

I'm curious how this turned out.

As a side note; I'm glad no one told me that changing a real wheel bearing was as hard as they are to do. I was fat, dumb & happy, got lucky and changed one on my 98' B5 in about 55 minutes without removing the support from the car, or dicking up the AB sensor.