All Cars, All the Time

Wobble Wobble

My goal is to always update you with whatever fixed my car. My hope is that maybe I can save some folks some trouble on down the line. Our 2004 Odyssey had a steering wheel shimmy since day one and 13 miles. I always thought it was a balancing issue, especially when I had the front tires rotated to the back. When it was time to rotate again, the problem came back so I had them balance all four tires. The shimmy came back! I took the van back to Firestone and they said I needed a new wheel $50 to $150 according to them. Hmph. So I took it to Honda and after checking things out they determined that the tire had been mounted improperly at the factory. No long road trips yet, but it seems promising. On a side note, they said that my tires were already cupping a bit. This troubles me because I've been rotating religiously. Honda says that you just don't send the tires front to back, but cross them as well: front left to right rear. Other folks say that you should just go front to back. The official response is to do whatever your owners manual says. All I know is that lately I've had a lot more issues with tire cupping and the associated roar than I ever did before.