Vibration from front

hiya guys,

ive had all the wheels balanced and four wheel laser tracking done a little while ago and all seemed great.

a couple of days ago the car started to get a small vibration from the front end at about 50 mph and can feel it through the steering wheel, it doesnt feel like an unbalanced wheel though as it doesnt shake.

its hard to describe the noise but sounds like a very noisy road surface and the wheel slightly vibrates, and has like a drone to it if that makes sense

ive checked the front tyre pressures and the front left tyre was on 10 psi and inflated all 4 tyres to 30 psi,and cannot see if any weights have come off the wheels, i did fit the cruise control ecu box the other day but cannot imagine thats got anything to do with it.

any help would be very appreciated please have done a search for these type of symtems but there seems to be so many answers

thanks again so much guys i as always really and grateful for all the help

all the best

gary

I would jack it up and check the wheel bearings

hiya

ive taken my freelander down to a land rover specialist and theyve advised me i need a new transfer box and quoted me £1,500 for a new one.

i simply cannot afford this and thinking about getting rid of the car but was wondering if anyone knew of a reputable company in the kent area please where i can get a second opinion

thanks again for you help

gary

Recon IRD from Bell (well respected) £615. Breakers could be another option but you never know what crap you're buying. IRD's and Diffs usually fail if the VCU is knackered it would be pointless changing the IRD if the VCU was U/S.

What has drawn the "specialist" to diagnose a new transfer box? (I assume by this they mean the IRD?)

Sounds suspicious to me.

I had the same thing last year after I replaced the front tyres. The rears had plenty of tread left on them, but, being less than the now new front ones, I swapped the fronts and rears round in accordance with the New Tyre Rules for Freelanders.

Prior to that though I drove home with the new ones on the front as I didn't want to take the **** and ask the bloke to swap the fronts and rears over. That was the moment I started feeling the vibration and noise. Not as bad as when I swapped the wheels round, but definitely at that point. I even went back to the tyre place there and then to get the new tyres checked out, but, naturally, they couldn't find anything wrong with them.

So I went home and swapped the fronts and rears round, thinking that might help. Result: horrendous droning noise and vibration from 40mph to about 70mph! Really annoying and properly got on my nerves until I started looking at what I thought were the good tyres on the front - they were actually badly castellated from where they'd been on the back. I know the VCU's good so I guess there's some other problem that I may or may not one day find, but my droning/vibration problem was definitely caused by tyres. I ended up getting the castellated ones replaced too and all was well.

So it's probably worth checking ALL your tyres for castellation problems. At least if you have to have four new tyres and a new VCU, it'll be a damned sight cheaper than a new VCU and the IRD the garage want you to buy (plus new tyres as well, probably...)!!

gstuart, how much was the laser alignment? Was it actually to adjust all 4 wheels, or just the fronts?

hiya

thanks for he reply guys, they advised me that they laser aligned all four wheels and i think it was around £50.00

this all started from fitting 2 new tyres to the rears.

the story so far was got 2 new tyres fitted to the rears and the back ones on the front, then found my steering wheel out of line, spent out again and got all the four wheels aligned which i found very strange but feel its no point going over that as its done.

still really ****ed with the other garage as im convinced ive been stitched up as everyone ive spoken to tells me that changing tyres does not alter the steering wheel position and convinced they messed around with my tracking to get me to get the four wheel tracking done.

still i just wont go back as i cannot prove anything and it wont get my car fixed by mulling over what they did and didnt do.

still have a drone and vibration dead on 50 mph, tried also putting it onto sport mode no difference, if i go faster or slower than 50mph the noise goes.

well took my car up the road to watling tyres to get the front wheels double checked. the front where 4 grams or was it ounces ( sorry cannot remember but was quite a large weight that both front wheels needed) , out on both sides and instead of the other garage wanting to charge me nearly £1,500 they charged me £16.00 to balance both front wheels.

found the guy really good and said lets do the balancing first then see how it goes, if not ok come back and we can go from there, and suggested to start off simple before even going down the route of ird.

he did say that they dont do wheel bearings etc.

its a bit better but its still there, my thought is as follows but i imagine i may be wrong

as both the front wheels were out on balancing and me doing speeds up to 80mph would that have damaged my front wheel bearings

if it was indeed my ird wouldnt it make the noise and vibrate all the time . i must admit i havent had the ird oil level checked.

im able to reverse on full lock very easily without any restriction so does that rule the vcu out.

thanks so much again guys im so worried about this as there would be no way i could afford a new ird but will worry about that when the time comes.

i also get so anoyed as i cannot do much these days due to me disability restrictions

all the best and thanks any info would be a massive help

and to boot both my drivers door central locking motor have gone, gggrrrrrr now ive got to get the passenger one as well as still havent got round replacing that yet.

all the best

gary