I have a shimmy/shake from my '06 X at every speed above 70, getting worse with speed. And I feel a shimmy in the steering wheel right during/after shifts during heavy acceleration. And finally, the shimmy comes and goes every single time I get on or off the gas while on the highway. Car has 63K. Stock 17" wheels and Continental DWS tires that have about 15k on them but I've been battling this since they were new, and on the set of tires before that.

Initial trip to dealer for balancing told me that 2 wheels were slightly bent, so they balanced everything and put the bent ones in the rear.

I had the 2 bent ones replaced, and had everything rebalanced again. Still had a shake/shimmy.

Tired of dealing with the dealer, the G35X went to the local Firestone for an alignment and a road force balance. They confirmed that no wheels were bent, and each tire balanced out perfectly with no road force. I still have the spec sheet they printed out. The car was better when they were done but it's still there.

Shimmy/shake is now getting worse when getting on or off the gas on the highway, and it's starting to occur at lower speeds. I think it's fairly obvious at this point that it's not alignment or tire balance or a bent rim.

Anyone have any ideas? I know the compression rods are creaking, would those bushings being shot possibly cause this? Has anyone had anything else cause an issue like this? My thoughts were to do the compression rods first regardless and then go from there but I figured I'd check with you all and see what you think.

 

Did you buy the car new? Do you know how the wheels were initially bent? Your car probably hit something pretty hard to bend two wheels. That hit could have bent something else.

 

I did not buy it new. It had 36K and I truly have no idea how they were bent. The potholes are so bad around here though that bent or cracked alloy wheels are a common phenomenon. Each of my parents mercedes have bent more than 5 wheels over the last 2 years.

That said, the alignment came out just fine so I was hoping that nothing was tweaked too badly. Looks good to the eye also, I spend a lot of time looking at that front suspension due to this issue.

Good call though, next time it goes to any shop I will ask them to check. That's very infrequent though since I do all my own maintenance and repairs.

 

mine does the same thing but not all of the time, this weekend I was going 80mph+ for about 200 miles straight and no shaking but sometimes it will do it and sometimes it wont

 

^could be that you need an alignment?

 

Thats what I was thinking as well. If you are on stock 17's and had two front wheels bent the previous owner had to have hit something really hard. With over 4.5" of sidewall, I would think that it would take some force.

 

The compression rods bushings could be part of the problem. Since they are not too expensive to replace and making noise I would do those first, like you said.

Also, it could be your wheel bearings. They are known to go bad prematurely, especailly on X's from what I've read.

 

I had the same problem the dealer said it was the drivers side engine mount. It would come and go when the car would shift of if I got off the gas or cruise at certain speeds.

 

It does not sound like a balance issue which is usually consistent at certain speeds

Don't think so since he did not say car was pulling.

+1 That is what it sounds like to me, or a tranny mount.

 

VERY interesting. Very similar to what seems to be bothering me.

Did they replace the mount and if so, did that fix the problem?

 

Probably the route I am going to take.

Wouldn't the wheel bearing(s) make noise if they were going out?

 

^yeah, usually if it's the wheel bearings you'll hear them making noise. So that's probally not the issue. I would definetly have the engine and tranny mounts checked as 04nismoG and COBRA ESQ mentioned also.

 

Yup, sounds good to me.

I am actually going to try out a new dealer the next time I take it there. We'll see how they do.

If I brought it to my old dealer the car would come back with a $400 bill and be exactly the same as it went it, except washed.

I call it the $400 car wash.