Last firday night/saturday morning we had some bad weather, I was coming back to my place and going a little faster than I should and slid into a snow bank. No damage but the car was sitting ontop of some hard snow/ice and couldn't get itself out. Had it towed out. Now there is a vibration I can feel that seems to be coming from the front end and if I had to guys the front driver side wheel area. It' doesn't start till around 50. I can't hear anything if the window is down but that might be because of wind noise. It's tough to explain the vibe. It's not really strong but I can feel it through the floor in my feet or if my foot is on the gas. I think I can hear some kind of grinding type noise coming through to the cabin when this happens. I've looked under the car a little and haven't seen anything that I can directly attribute it to. I need to find time to look under there much closer. Any ideas?

 

Sounds like it could be quite a few things such as you may need to replace your tires, control arms may be bent. tie rods may be worn. Also you may need an alignment. Take to a shop or the dealer and have it checked out.

 

I'd start with checking wheel weights/tire conditions, then alignment and then the hardware (control arms, tie rods, wheel bearings, etc).

 

Similar thing happened to my friend's Porsche Cayenne S, kept happening around 50 as well. Found out that the 7th cylinder wasn't firing but it actually felt like tire alignment, flatspot etc. Go figure...

 

^ talk about gonna scare the living $hit out of him when he checks his thread again.

 

^ haha,
not to add anymore fright but i'll elaborate on the story.
The Cayenne had hit a deer a few weeks before, over $20,000 damage paid for out of his pocket not the insurance (now this is a Porsche, not a lower-brand car so you can imagine the ridiculous prices charged even when the damage wasn't overly significant.) Maybe somewhat similar to hitting a snowbank?? jks
Anyway Cayenne got all fixed and we were headed to lunch one day, started jittering around at above 50 so we figured that maybe it just needed to driven harder, blow some crap out of the engine or something. Drove it hard all day, whipping down the freeway at 170km/h (401, between Pickering and downtown) and moms in their Caravans were passing us in the Express lane, how embarrassing!
Problem continued on for the rest of the day, got it checked out and that's what the problem was, not something with the tires as we figured.
Probably not that same issue with your car, but symptoms sounds pretty familiar lol Hope that's not your problem!

 

J/K I can't even think that it could be a cylinder not firing. I didn't hit a snowbank per say, I kind of drove right up on top of it and it kept the tires from touching anything solid and gripping. I didn't think I did any real damage to the car but maybe sliding laterally messed up a tire tread, or when the tire hit the snowbank it knocked it out of alignment. I'll be going to a shop and getting it checked out, hopefully it's not something that needs more work than that.

 

I had a similar "vibration" but more like a throbbing humming sound. It only appeared from 40MPH and up. Turns out, it was defective passenger front wheel bearing.

 

If it's not a tire or alignment issue, that's my next best guess is a wheel bearing.

 

^Plus 1. Keep us updated with what happens.

 

Not sure what portion of the car was stuck on hard ice/snow, but it sounds like you might have driveline vibration, such as bent driveshaft if the car was resting on top of the snow/ice in that section.

 

Yes, driveline was my guess.

 

Highly doubt a driveshaft would get bent. A driveshaft is pretty tucked up inside the drivetrain tunnel. He would mack up the exhaust before he got any driveshaft damage.

 

I took the car in and got the tires rotated. They said the fronts were "choppy" and the rears weren't. The vibration is still there and exactly the same even with switching the tires. I'm thinking it's a bearing now more and anything. It really tends to happen when I'm @ 55 or 60 and then I take my foot off the gas and as the car is going down through 60-50 on it's own, I can really feel the vibration then. I'm going to take it to a nissan dealer monday, I wish i had an infiniti dealer closer.

 

I just had that happen to me. It sounds like the wheel bearing and you have to buy a whole hub. It happened on front passenger wheel cost 350 or do it yourself for 200