highway death shake

Discuss your 2000-2005 Bonneville SE, SLE, SSEi, Buick Le Sabre 00-05 and Buick Park Avenue 97-05. Please use General Chat for non-mechanical issues, and Performance and Brainstorming for improvements.
carl
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Re: highway death shake

Post by carl »

There is an update about 11 posts down.
jhudspe2
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Re: highway death shake Possible fix??

Post by jhudspe2 »

ok i dunno about anyone else but i have the highway death shake right around 64-65 mph and its stops somewhere over 79 mph or so well i had no idea what it was but my girl was playing with my 7 mo in the yard and noticed the air deflector that is under the front bumper was hanging there by the drivers side well i just ignored it at first then i thought hard about it what if the plastic is stiff enough that 0-60 mph doesnt bother it or bothers it slightly and when u go just a little faster it causes it to shake rapidly.. if u havent looked its attached to everything under there the bumper i mean everything i also noticed mine was missing a bunch of bolts and stuff so on the ride home from work i duct taped it pretty well just to test this idea and i swear that for the first couple of miles it was gone and then it came back due to the tape coming off.. has anyone else looked at there's to see if its loose??
golfyeti
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Re: highway death shake Possible fix??

Post by golfyeti »

jhudspe2 wrote:ok i dunno about anyone else but i have the highway death shake right around 64-65 mph and its stops somewhere over 79 mph or so well i had no idea what it was but my girl was playing with my 7 mo in the yard and noticed the air deflector that is under the front bumper was hanging there by the drivers side well i just ignored it at first then i thought hard about it what if the plastic is stiff enough that 0-60 mph doesnt bother it or bothers it slightly and when u go just a little faster it causes it to shake rapidly.. if u havent looked its attached to everything under there the bumper i mean everything i also noticed mine was missing a bunch of bolts and stuff so on the ride home from work i duct taped it pretty well just to test this idea and i swear that for the first couple of miles it was gone and then it came back due to the tape coming off.. has anyone else looked at there's to see if its loose??
holy smokes, you might be on to something. I too noticed that problem with mine a couple of years ago and recall just trying to prop up the low-hanging air deflector (bottom part of the wheel well liner IIRC) on the drivers with a plastic plug to replaced one of the lost oem plastic snaps that holds the deflector to the back of the air dam. Your suggestion kinda sounds like my "loose/flapping air dam" theory. I'll have to have a look at how my loose deflector patch job is holding up.

Man, that would be a welcome discovery of the "underlying" source of the shimmy problem.


Will report back
Mark
The Familyman's Trans-Am
Intense 3.4 MPS, Intense FWI, Intense PCM, copper NGKs TR55's, MSD wires, MSD coils, BWD ICM, MagnaFlow High Flow Cat, drilled 180 'stat, solid front mount, Monroe Max Air rear shocks, Moog rear mounts, Moog suspension bushings, cleared front corners, 190,000 miles
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Ken_W
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Re: highway death shake

Post by Ken_W »

So; golfyeti, how did this work out?

Ken_W
2000 SSEi "Gypssei" - 206k miles - Light Bronzemist Metallic - stock
1999 Grand Am GT - 168k miles - Red - stock DEAD -- transmission died
2004 Pontiac Montana Ext 2WD - 207k miles - Blue Black Metallic - stock
golfyeti
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Re: highway death shake

Post by golfyeti »

Ken_W wrote:So; golfyeti, how did this work out?

Ken_W
Ken, sorry, since I last posted my car died at the lake (won't turn over - fuse box issue I think) so I have not been able to test this.
Mark
The Familyman's Trans-Am
Intense 3.4 MPS, Intense FWI, Intense PCM, copper NGKs TR55's, MSD wires, MSD coils, BWD ICM, MagnaFlow High Flow Cat, drilled 180 'stat, solid front mount, Monroe Max Air rear shocks, Moog rear mounts, Moog suspension bushings, cleared front corners, 190,000 miles
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bonnelover
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Re: highway death shake

Post by bonnelover »

I had this problem on my 97, it was the tires. I took the tires to get them road forced balanced at another tire shop, since Goodyear could not get them balanced right, and they found out that one of the tires had a high spot on it that was causing the vibe. The tires were new. Goodyear gave me a new set, instead of replacing the one, which was dumb. Had a vibration with the second set also. This time Good year found out that two of the ties had high spots. Ended up with a third set of tires, different series, and the vibe is gone. Three sets of tires in one month, lol. It ended up just being the tires and not any of the other things that I had read about!!!!
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