Help! Prius swaying/wobbling issue

dit you check the tire's?
maybe a protection wire inside broke and you can see a bubble! pushing out

 

Tideland: I have had this before on one of my other cars. Turned out to be one of the brand new tires I bought was out of round...i.e. a defective tire.

 

This sounds strange. I can't think of anything that would be noticeable at low speeds, but not high. Usually balance/out of round/alignment issues get worse the faster you go. If the lug nuts were loose enough to cause a wobble, you wouldn't need a torque wrench to find out.

 

I had something like this happen with a Camry I drove back in the day...

It ended up being a suspension member that was broken that allowed the rear passenger-side tire to pivot (kinda like a front tire does when you turn the steering wheel). I ended up finding the problem by using a floor jack to raise the front and rear of the car, grabbing the tires, and trying to get them to move.

Not sure if you've tried anything like this or not, but it's worth a shot.

 

I'm going with the defective tyre.

Have a look at them if you see a bulge don't even drive on it to the tyre shop, put the spare on and drive down on that. Deflate the tyre before putting it in the car. I had a bulge on one of my 6x4' trailer tyres, it blew out while just standing with no load in my yard with so much force there was a hole about 1/4 the size of the whole tread and I thought someone had thrown something at my window, the shock wave hit the window with almost enough force to break it it seemed. I'd hate that to happen while driving.

 

That's a great suggestion! It would be fairly simple for him to jack up one wheel at a time, give it a firm wiggle to see if it wobbles or is obviously loose

 

Is it possible to have somebody else drive the Prius at under 20 km/h while you follow behind at a safe distance in another car? Just to look for obvious shimmy from the wheels

I'm sure you've seen semi trucks going down the road and the trailer dual tires are wobbling back and forth because the grease monkey back at the tire shop used a supercharged impact gun to improperly tighen the wheel to the hub

A tire improperly mounted can cause the same wobble, but usually you have that at high speed too. Usually *worse* at higher speed

Any shops in your area offer Road Force Balancing? I had that done to my FJ Cruiser to get rid of an annoying shimmy after I had the Goodyear Fortera TripleTred's installed. With the Toyo snow tires, I insisted on having a Road Force shop balance them.

Hunter GSP9700 Wheel Vibration Control System

If you live in the US you can use the web site to find a tire shop equipped with the Road Force machine. Otherwise you have to contact Hunter to locate a shop in Canada

Hunter GSP9700 Wheel Vibration Control System

 

That's odd. I used to have a camper, and the same thing happened to me too around a month after I bought the unit. Brand new camper with brand new tires.

I had stopped to gas up my GMC Sierra pickup, and happened to notice the bulge in one of the tires. I put the spare on, drove to a tire shop, and they claimed that it wasn't too unusual for a camper tire to fail like that. The internal defect usually causes the belt to separate or the sidewall cord - in my case - to fail.

That would have been an exciting drive for me if the tire had failed at highway speeds

 

What happened to your Camry? I guess I haven't been keeping up with all the gossip. Now that I think about it, haven't heard from Frank Hudon in a long time

I have to ask a question. Did the wobble start only after you had the tires installed, or afterwards, or after hitting a pothole or something else? Something here does not add up in the usual way, though a tire defect is starting to become a culprit

 

You mentioned a lot of snow recently. Any snow frozen inside the wheel? I remember once I had snow or ice or something frozen inside a wheel and it felt like a wheel was out of balance. I might be barking up the wrong tree, but I just thought of it. Went away when things melted after a few days.

 

as everyone else has mentioned, it could be a ton of different things. can't really tell much over the internet. best to have someone look at it in person, of course.

sorry we've been scarce in the tech stuff, DH has had it rough lately!

 

I would suggest you look at the tread after you jack it up & spin the wheel. you will see that the plys have shifted & the tread will wobble so you can see it.

 

I've had brand new tires that had one that wasn't round... it's called out of round, and it will wobble at low speeds. You may not actually see it.

I would take it back to the tyre dealer and tell them about the wobble.. they can do a check on it that will detect anomolies, and it should be under their warranty, right?

Just a thought.

 

This is starting to look like either a defective tire, incorrect mounting of tire on the part of the tire shop, or a loose/improperly torqued wheel. I would think this is leaning towards a defective tire, my two cats concur

If you can find a tire shop in the Vancouver area that has the Hunter Road Force machine, that will immediately detect a tire out of round or otherwise defective. When I had the Road Force done on the Goodyear Fortera TripleTreds on my FJ Cruiser, the tire shop even labeled where each directional tire should go for best highway tracking.

A conventional tire balance where the tire just spins in the air cannot uncover a defective tire. You could "balance" a square tire, but it would be impossible to drive with one

Best of luck

 

Not impossible if you have the right road.

 

Good thing I looked at that photo before drinking. Or you may have been responsible for a psychotic episode