Technical on and off shaking of my wheel and vibration at 50-60

[Dylan1010101]

My Fiat punto evo 2011, is currently playing up. When I get up to about 60mph it starts to vibrate (right driver side) and sometimes cause to wheel to shake, however it’s only happening every other time I use the car, could someone point me in the direction to what it could be and what to look for that would be great cheers

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

My Fiat punto evo 2011, is currently playing up. When I get up to about 60mph it starts to vibrate (right driver side) and sometimes cause to wheel to shake, however it’s only happening every other time I use the car, could someone point me in the direction to what it could be and what to look for that would be great cheers

Most likely it's wear in a ball joint (track rod end &/or bottom ball most likely) wheel balance may also be part of the problem but as the symptoms come and go more likely to be wear in something. Could also be wear in the rubber bushes in the bottom suspension arm, a weak shock absorber or possibly the steering rack itself.

My first check would be to jack the front up enough to get the wheel off the ground, one side at a time for safety reasons, and tug/push/pull and generally get "physical" with the wheel all the time looking for free play in anything. Look also for any oil leaking from the shock absorber. Although you think it's most likely the driver's side you need to check the passenger side too as there may be wear there which is being masked by the driver's side being most worn.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Ive had wheel balance cause this. First job take wheels off and cleam the back side. Accumulations of road debris and mud make wheel balance go off.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Ive had wheel balance cause this. First job take wheels off and cleam the back side. Accumulations of road debris and mud make wheel balance go off.

Yes, wheel balance certainly needs to be considered but I'm "worried" that Dylan tells us it doesn't do it every time he takes the car out. Of course it may just be that he doesn't reach that speed every time? but I think checking things out before spending money on rebalancing wheels would be my approach - checking, if you do it yourself, costs nothing whereas wheel balance can only be checked using a wheel balancing machine so will cost you.

By the way, be aware, even a pretty well balance wheel/tyre assembly will show up as needing balanced if subsequently checked again. I experimented with this "just for fun" when I had unfettered access to wheel balancing. I carefully balanced a wheel, removed it from the machine, rotated it through a quarter turn, remounted it on the machine and spun it up again. Nearly every time it showed up as requiring weights. I don't have an explanation for this but I tried it on more than one machine and it always behaved the same. The reason I mention this is that most wheels will show up as being somewhat out of balance if rechecked.