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I recently (~4 weeks ago or so) changed all my tyres from Michelin PS2's to Goodyear F1 Assymmetric's, as at the time, my PS2's were down to about 2-2.5mm all round and the tramlining was noticeable. I had no steering issues as I had the geometry re-aligned in late 2006, so all was good.
Got the tyres fitted and I asked the fitter if the alloys were in ok condition, and he advised that apart from one wheel having a very slight buckle, all the others were fine. All wheels balanced ok and I left.

Next morning I drove the car from cold, and noticed a significant shuddering of the steering only in the range of 50-60 mph, and much less at around 90mph however it was still there.
Took it back to the tyre fiter that day, and had all the wheels balanced again, and advised it was all good again.
Drove again next day, and steering still shuddering. The tyre shop then advised that they would have the balancing machine 're-calibrated' to eliminate any issues with that, and a couple of weeks passed and after their machine was done, I had the wheels re-balanced again.
Seems ok, but next day again shuddering.

Back again, and they try a new method of balancing, appears to sort it, however lo and behold a few days later it starts shuddering again. So back again this morning.

The key factors here are.
1) The shuddering is worst for the first 3-4 miles, and then diminshes down to being hardly there at all.
2) The shuddering never happened prior to all the tyres being replaced.

I think that their is a defect in the (one or more) tyre, but I cant rationalise why its worse on a cold tyre, rather than a warm one.

Opinions please

Try a different tyre balancing shop?

Nige_RS4 wrote:Try a different tyre balancing shop?

They did even suggest this, and it is an option.

Does anyone have any theories as to what may be causing this behaviour, if it's not wheel balancing?

You could try swapping the front's and back's and see if the shuddering goes away

kcsun wrote:You could try swapping the front's and back's and see if the shuddering goes away

Agree, could well be the slight buckle...

mbelle wrote:

kcsun wrote:You could try swapping the front's and back's and see if the shuddering goes away

Agree, could well be the slight buckle...

That was done the first time I had all the wheels rebalanced.
Cheers

TopBear wrote:

mbelle wrote:

kcsun wrote:You could try swapping the front's and back's and see if the shuddering goes away

Agree, could well be the slight buckle...

That was done the first time I had all the wheels rebalanced.
Cheers

I think the point of swapping front to back to see if you can identify a particular wheel that's causing the problem (or maybe it's a wheel bearing if the problem stays where it is). If you still get wobble through the s/wheel (normally the front wheels are the culpret) then maybe it is a wheel bearing?

HTH

What size tyres are they? I had the same problem - just changed 2 F1 275's - I think they need running in. Having covered 500 miles, they seem much better

Never heard of car tyres needing to be run in. Sounds like removing the wheels has upset something (bearings as previously mentioned?!?!?!?). Is there a local member who's wheels you can borrow? Or, try the spare each side. Maybe not to 90mph though

Dave

My dad had simular problem a few weeks ago on his 4x4. Went through the same process of getting rebalanced and then one day after giving up on fixing, one of the tyres deformed itself really bad. The vibrating went that bad that you could not drive over 10mph. The tyre had changed into a egg shape and stayed like it. Basially a faulty tyre. I dread to think what would of happened if it did this on the motorway! Lucky for my dad it happened at 30 mph and he stopped the vehicle o.k.

Edit- i think they was goodyears also. I will check tom.

This I guess is not much of a help in this case, but I'll tell an experience I had.

With Goodyear Eagle F1s, I had some vibrations - though those problems were present only past ~65mph and at worst between 65 to 75mph. Anything above, the vibration was there but less. It did exist right after balancing, and "run-in" made no significant difference. Sometimes it felt better, even as if gone altogether, but usually not.
(I got it removed old fashion way, had them balanced with the car... but that is a bit of hazzle. Btw the car was not B5 or even an Audi)

Anyway, the odd thing was that with different sets of wheels and tires there were no issues with the car. None. These wheels I had were good (actually new) and straight, no buckling etc. Even more odd to me was that after having a short run to test the balance, and return for rebalancing, the weights on the wheels needed to be redistributed again.

Trying to find cause, two of the tyres did have about 1-1.5 mm of height variation when checked with a measuring device. Goodyear told me their spec was 2mm max, but anyway they provided me a new set of tyres the next week. After balancing those, it was better - but all of vibration was not gone (with normal balancing).

Later on, I had the same wheels fitted with different set of tyres (different manufacturer), and no issues at all! Though, come the next spring, they needed a rebalance. Done the normal way and almost problem free after that.

No science behind, but I came to the conclusion (in my case) that the ET of the wheel and/or the brand and type of tyre has a difference, even if seemingly everything should be ok.

regards,
RS4_fin