testarossaguy

My '99 A8 has Rondell aftermarket wheels on it and requires the use of "centering rings" to mount the wheels to the car. Since I bought the car it's always had a slight "shimmy" above 60mph. Recently pulled off the wheels, removed old weights/sticky gue and cleaned them up for rebalancing. Wheels are back on, but the shimmy is still there but to a lesser extent. The car had all new control arms within the last year by previous owner. I guess a wheel could be out-of-round? Or a tire messed up after driving out of balance for about 1k miles? I'm gonna jack the car up and try and look for an out-of-round condition on the tire, and put an indicator on the wheel. Are there any other areas I should look at?

marcodant

and balanced and the problem goes and comes, but I found out I was throwing weights. the last time I had it done it was good and stayed good. I too am using stick on weights. Could also be bad tires (belts), wheel out of round. go to a tire place that can measure those things and find out first. I know of only one in my general area and it is about 60miles from me near albany ny who has the equipment to test for those issues.

testarossaguy

Thanks for the info. When I cleaned the backside of my wheels it was obvious that they had been balanced several times before. I'm gonna try moving the wheels around the car and determine which one (or ones?)is out of whack. If I can get the shimmy to follow a wheel then that's most of the battle. Your right about the shakes "coming and going" as that is EXACTLY how my car is misbehaving. Sometimes it's okay and then it fades in and out. What a pain in the butt! For such a high line car it's embarrassing to have it do this. I love the look of the rondell RS6 wheels and want to keep them, but if I can't fix this problem then they are history.

tozoM8

If it is not balanced properly, it should vibrate all the time.

testarossaguy

I keep the car very clean. I wash it one or two times weekly by hand, and I also clean the back side of the wheels. So I'm quite sure there is no dirt or crud adding unwanted weight to the wheels.

ex-a8drifter

tire place to see the runout of your wheels. You will spend a lot of time and effort for nothing if you try to diagnose it by switching wheels over time. All the while, you will be wearing out your tires unevenly and cupping them, which compounds the balancing. My $0.02