Rear Pass Side Wheel Wobble !!!

Have someone drive next to you at that speed and see if they see anything.

If they don't, as long as the car drives normally once it's loaded down it's just empty car syndrome. A known problem with lightweight cars that are 16 years old. You could do a refresh of rear springs and struts, which cost about $125 for lowest price online and is a simple nuts and bolts job after jacking up the back of the car...

OR just get some friends to ride around with... or just a sandbag or two in the back or you'll end up with nervous ghosts riding around in the back of the car... The ghosts usually go away above 15mph, as well as when you're stopped, so just ignore them...

 

Sounds aren't the only signs of failure. Lift that corner of the car and check for play.

 

Lift the car with a jack put jack stands under it if you're that type You're not going to be under the car take a long iron bar or pipe not one that's easily bent we're talking cast iron pipe steel pipe or I use a digging bar a solid piece of iron put 3 ft of it under the space you've put under your tire by lifting the car up The suspension is just hanging now you're going to take that iron bar that you slided an angle under the space of the bottom of the wheel assembly and rubber tire and you're going to gently lift up like you're trying to lift the tire wheel and spring assembly up and down we're not trying to lift the car and tilt it over on the jack so it's on its side We just want to hear any clunk clunk clunk of up and down movement If you get any of that that's what you're looking to find. Another thing you could have is a bent wheel which you will need to take the wheel off and mount it to something like an old hub clamp to a table vise or something made up to do this like a wheel balancing machine would be good at the tire store for most people You're tired guy will spin the wheel and immediately tell you oh yeah this would be wheel is bent see it wobble look at my finger boingoying boom done I've done this a million times I've vent a bunch of wheels it is easy to do so on and so forth so far I've not had a Prius a generation two especially with the rear suspension in any kind of a loose state ever never seen it It's a pretty solid setup back there even with the wimpy axle beam thing that's back there I'm leaning more towards the vent wheel It's not seriously bent it's just bent enough so that as the wheel goes round and round it comes out and in at the side It doesn't take much these days are you on style steel rims or the factory alloys If the factory alloys they're pretty stout so then something could be bent where the hub connects to the rear strut something like that.

 

Also check where the hub mounts to the strut the big bolts that hold the strut ears to the hub wouldn't be the first time these were not as tight as they should be and loose is not a thing.

 

Swap the back tires with the fronts and recheck just to absolutely rule that out.

Monitor ABS data with a capable scantool - is it doing anything? yes, it should light the "slip" icon on the dash but this is a weird problem.

Rear brakes ok? (condition and adjustment, parking brake cables free, etc.

Plus, what makes you say that it's the passenger side causing it vs the driver side?



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It could also be related to your wheel bearings. Mostly in the front, but a rear wheel bearing failure could also cause a wobble.

I recently discovered that one of my front wheel bearings had failed. I'd had a couple previous bearing failures where the noise was the symptom of the wheel bearing failure. This time, it was tire cupping and when I jacked up the car and wiggled the wheel around looking for play in the ball joint or tie rod I found an excessive amount of play in the wheel bearing.

I live in an area that has snow/ice in the winter. While studless snow tires worked for my previous cars, I didn't think they worked all that well when I tried them on my first Prius. I've been using studded snow tires in the winter ever since, and I think that's caused extra stress on my wheel bearings.

Jack the car up, grab the tire and wiggle - side to side and up and down. Since I've gotta jack my car up to do my oil changes, I'm going to be making this check (for the front) when I do this to gauge problems with ball joints, tie rods as well as wheel bearings.

If you're due for a tire rotation, do that. Maybe even if you're not due. Track where they put that wheel and see if the problem goes with the wheel or the location on your car. They could also give the wheels the wiggle test before they pull them to see if there's any play.

 

I would hate to think that you could have enough slop in a rear wheel bearing that could make noise clunk clunk clunk like literal pieces of bearing material are no longer in the circle so on and so forth and not make a noise back to me would be mind-boggling in itself matter of fact I just changed a front wheel bearing on my Corolla which is the old style '02 and it was making a hell of a racket but still driving another hour and it could have overheated the whole hub and had a real mess like smoking and near fire.

 

Yes, they can fail without making much noise.

Although to be frank, I'd expect a 2008 to have at least two noisy wheel bearings by now, so it may be that you are getting evenly balanced noise that you've grown accustomed to.

 

That's been my observation as well. Rare to detect an unbalanced wheel below 30mph and often higher.

If you can hand-spin the wheels with no clickety-ticketies then that's a reasonable indication that the bearing will be quiet under load at speed.

Pretty good mystery there!

If you observed tire cupping on the previous tire, maybe worth an alignment check? Take a prybar down there and see if you get any undue play on any of the bushings or links?

 

How do the rear shocks and the frame that they mount on look?

 

I was going to suggest moving or replacing the wheel with the spare and see if the problem moves or is eliminated. Doing this, I found a bad rim on my old Mazda. Also, bad tires (especially cheap ones) are a THING; had a good michelin go bad (inside sidewall bubble) that caused a "whomp-whomp" noise/vibration above 50mph.

 

So why did you say this in your first post?

 

Thought so at the time?

Haven't you ever had a problem that made you look again at something you'd first thought was ok?