Hey Everyone, hope someone can advise me on 2 problems I have with my 97 SSEi.

First, is my car feels like there is a wheel out of balance. I put 4 new Goodyear Eagle LS tires on it and ever since then it feels out of balance starting around 60Mph. It has been balanced 4 times by different locations, and each time it hasnt made much difference.
Is there something else that could cause an out of balance feeling/vibration ? Since I do almost all highway miles and 700 miles a week, as you can imaging this is driving me crazy !
The tires I had on before were Michellin, and the car was smooth with those on there, but maybe they were masking another problem ?

Second problem, same car. Whenever I have been driving for a while, if I stop in a hurry, I get a burning engine oil smell come into the cabin. Maybe thru the vents but I dont know. If I stop slowly it doesnt do it. I do have a small oil leak behind the engine somewhere, still trying to locate it. But why would I smell it when I stop suddenly ?

Hope someone has some comments to help me.

Thanks,

Andrew

Maybe warped rotors. Try swapping the wheels and tires front-for-back, and see if the symptoms seem to change ends on the car. Also make sure the lug nuts are correctly torqued by hand, not slammed on with an impact wrench. I think 100 ft./lbs. is the usual spec.

Sounds like you're sloshing oil drips onto a hot exhaust somewhere, when you stand on the brakes and everything loose rushes forwards on the car.

Hey Andy, thanks for the reply.

I watched them hand torque the nuts each time they were balanced. They also did a rotation each time and there was no change.

There is some brake vibration, I know the rear drums are getting a bit low. Could that cause the same type of vibration/balance problem ?

The oil thing sounds right.
Man, must be a lot of oil to splash onto the exhaust ???? I will have to find the reason for that. Seems to be having that smell since I overfilled the oil one time. Could I have blown out something ? Maybe the PCV valve ? I am running Mobil 1 Syn oil and ACDelco oil filter.

Cheers,

Andrew

thank you sir !! I will do that.

Any other ideas on the balance problem ? Could it be my rear drum brakes ? My front disks were replaced about 10k ago.

Could it be my shocks or something like that ?

thanks for all the great info. I will check some of those things.

Whats weird is that my 4 old Michellins were smooth right up to about 90Mph. Not I can get past 70 without it feeling like somethings wrong... Goodyear LS'* arent that bad a tire are they ?

Maybe you need a front end alignment?

Not that I've noticed; I have them on our '96 Trans Sport and we've done about 30K so far, including some high-speed, long-distance trips with 5 people and a ton of luggage.

Try jacking up the car one corner at a time and just spinning the wheel by hand, and look for any wiggles in the tread. Maybe there'* a slightly shifted belt, or even a lump of dried mud inside the back of the rim someplace.

Did you get yours at Sears, by chance? Someone told me once that the "LS" designation on a Goodyear tire was unique to Sears distribution only.

ok, heres the deal with my tires.

I bought them at Sams Club. Went back this morning, and told them I wanted a refund and new tires. They gave me a refund on everything with no problems at all, and I purchased 4 new Michelin'*. They noticed that one of my rims was a little bent, and that would be causing the vibration.

The Michelins seem to be disguising the bad rim, and the car is running really smooth now ! So I am happy. I think I will buy Michelins for all my cars now. They cost a bit more, but I think its worth it

Cheers,

Andrew