What would cause shaking/wobbling in the steering wheel at speeds above 40 mph. Before you answer, this is what has already been done to the front end. New Bilstein struts, left ball joint, and new idler arm. The front rotors need to be either turned or replaced, they pulse when applying brakes. The tires were balanced at a different place than the above work. So, any ideas?

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1999 MB SL500 (110,000 mi)
2004 Volvo V70 2.5T (220,000 mi)
2014 Tesla Model S 85 (136,000 mi)
MBCA member

Rick,

Usually front end shimmy is caused by the tires. Try swapping the front and rear tires, one pair at a time and see if the shimmy goes away. If it does, you know what the problem is.

P E H

You might try getting in a car out on the road next to yours so you can see if the tires are doing something strange...
How did you only wear out one ball joint ? While these things can be caused by tires,,, it usually is taking advantage of some looseness in the front end to exagerate it....have you rechecked your front wheel bearing play ?

so far, my shakes and shimmies were caused by tires, and I heard that rotors may also be a culprit. My Dunlops are all over the road for the first 500 miles or so.

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1985 190D 2.2l Sold-to Brother-in-law
1996 Mustang 3.8l -"thinks it's a sports car"
1988 Grand Wagoneer - Sold (good home)
1995 Grand Cherokee Ltd -"What was I thinking??!!"

I currently have a shimmy above 65 to 70 mph. My shop tells me I am in desperate need of work or replacement of the upper ball joint assembly (I forget the word or name exactly...anyone?). There is occasionally some creaking and clunking associated with this too. Sound familiar?

I was planning on doing a tire swap to see if the problem goes away. I though I would move 1 tire at a time to see if it's one particualr tire that may be bad. I had my indy check the whole front end out and let me know what needed to be replaced. Being it he mentioned only the forementioned items, I assume everything else was fine. When I bought the car, I could see that the tread on the outer edge of the left front tire was worn down, which I knew could be caused by a bad ball joint. I'll try the tire swap and proceed from there. Could be simply that the tires need to be re-balanced.

__________________
1999 MB SL500 (110,000 mi)
2004 Volvo V70 2.5T (220,000 mi)
2014 Tesla Model S 85 (136,000 mi)
MBCA member

A slightly out-of-round wheel, in addition to the tire, can cause problems too. You might want to check that as well.

I have a bad vibration/shake between 60 to 70 MPH from the rear. Switching tires did not help.

Forgot to mention car is 1982 300TD T.

Unlikely, but here's one more possibilty...take the lug wrench and try to tighten one of the lugs on the driver's side front wheel. If the entire wheel assembly moves a couple of inches towards the back of the car when you have pressure on the wrench, the guide rod mount may be bad.

Just something to check...good luck!