Slight Front End Shaking 63-69mph ?

I've seen wheel bearings causing that.

 

Likely a wheel balance problem.


iPhone ?

 

I vote for balance given a range of speed causing the vibration, some harmonic thEre. Had that with another car once. Strange that they changed wheels and tires and it returned. Do you drive on rough ground that could screw with tires?

 

Whenever I drive at 60mph and above I would feel a few slight lateral jerks on the car. It's kinda annoying but I am attributing this to the new tires on its breaking-in phase, that is oils in the new tires hasn't been completely removed yet from repeated driving.

If this persists for a few more days I would have to bring the car back to the dealer for a look-see. Fyi, just got the car 13 days ago.

 

Make sure they used the correct stick on weights when they balanced the tyres. Maybe get them checked somewhere you trust? If they'd been sloppy there might be a valve cap inside the tyre causing a wobble. If after having the tyres checked and they're fine I'd check the side walls very carefully for signs of damage as that can cause vibrations.

Whilst at it, maybe get the rears checked too as sometimes it can feel like the front when it's a rear tyre causing the issues, especially if the vibration through the steering wheel is faint.

Have you had any suspension damage? I see you have a new car but one big pothole can cause issues if you hit it hard enough.

 

I have the same wheel out of balance vibration, most noticeable at 64-66 mph. The dealer rotated and balanced the tires at 7000 miles. It helped a little, but the vibration is still there. I'm planning to take it to a tire store to see if they can do better.

Even with no other fixes, at 12000 miles, the vibration doesn't seem as strong. Maybe I just don't notice it as much.

When my 2011 was new, I thought it didn't track easily on the highway, I would need to do lots of tiny steering corrections to stay in the lane. That also seems to be better.

 

Replace your wheels with a demo off their lot. If the problem goes away then you know the issue. If it doesn't then you've at least discounted the wheels/tyres.

I'm trusting the tyres are at correct pressures? Some dealers like to top them off at 30 psi or so.

 

Since they already put new tires and wheels on it, I think that possibility is low. I am thinking a manufacturing defect in the suspension somewhere... possibly bearings. You might test the temperature of the hubs with your hand after a commute.
Also, you might have them run it through an alignment... it was free up to 12k miles/1 year on my 2010.

 

New possibility: toe-in alignment is off, perhaps on one wheel. The crabbing it causes forces that tire to loose grip/regain grip/loose grip, leading to an oscillation or vibration. A resonance with speed might be possible.

 

My wife’s 2011 Prius 4 and my 2012 Prius 4 do pretty much what you are describing. The only difference is that the ’11 shakes between 59 and 62 mph, and the ’12 does it at between 63 and 65 mph. (My wife’s ’08 (4) and my ’10 (4) had no such problems.) I brought the ’11 back a few days after I bought it and the ASE certified geniuses at the dealership told me it was road conditions. When the ’12 exhibited the same symptoms, I didn’t bother to bring to the dealer. When I put new wheels and snow tires on the ’11 I assumed that the shaking would end, but it didn’t – same shaking at the same speeds. At times I think it could be an engine vibration, because we have never felt any shaking in the steering wheel on either car - only the body shakes. It’s possible that some sort of increased tire wear will be a consequence of the shaking, so we avoid driving at those speeds.

 

A defective wheel bearing should deteriorate fairly quickly. Other possibilities are imbalance in components other than wheels/tires --perhaps a brake rotor.

If the vibration occurs mostly on smooth roads then I would vote for possible binding (static friction) in a McPherson strut. This is a well-documented problem with early McPherson struts and it's the reason that front coil springs are always offset --- to reduce the side thrust on the strut. I'm also thinking that this problem would be worse with LRR tires since they have lower intrinsic damping.

 

I was going to take my Prius to an outside tire store to get the wheels rebalanced, to see if they could do a better job. But the vibration isn't as strong as it was when the car had 5,000 miles. I don't think it's due to just getting used to it.
Now I have 12,000 miles on the car. I'm going to leave it alone for now.

 

If balance and/or alignment does not fix it, check wheel run-out and concentricity as well as tire roundness.

 

Rotors are warped. Somebody did a hard pull down on a demo.

 

Whatever came out of this? I'm having this issue now with my 2012

Merchants tire jus re balanced all my wheels today (18 inch that they newly did a month ago) and I'm still having the bad vibrations... I would say it was happening above 55mph but now tonight on way to work it was happening around 45-50mph! The tires aren't but a month old. This didn't start happening till after Toyota did a full alignment Wednesday. I made sure to have wheels rebalanced today so when I take it to Toyota they don't try to say it's the Balancing of the wheels!