W210 slight vibration when cold
 

Hi,

I feel a slight vibration while driving my 2002 E320 for about the first 10 minutes after startup. This feels to me like the wheels are out of balance. This only occurs for the first startup of the day. I don't notice it on restarts. The car has about 60K miles on it.

I noticed this vibration just after a tire rotation, but can't say that the vibration started at exactly the same time that the tires were rotated. The alignment and wheel balancing were done recently.

I'm thinking about swicthing the wheels from front to rear to see iv the problem goes away. Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Steve
2002 E320 60K
1997 Volvo 850 260K
1998 GMC Suburban 155K POS!

Tire pressure okay?
Sometimes, when tires are rotated, the " Rotator ":D doesn't re-adjust the pressure ( front/rear ).
If the vibration is only for the first few minutes ( or miles ), it sounds like flat-spotting.

W210 Vibration
 

Hi, Manny,

Yes, the tire pressures are set per the owner's manual. Do you know what else it might be?

Thanks,

Steve

Is the vib present when stopped or only when moving?

My suggestion is to carefully unbolt each wheel and replace the nuts at the correct torque. I had a similar problem when the tire shop overtorqued my wheels. I couldn't figure out why the car would vibrate when cold, then steady up. A return trip to the shop didn't help. So I decided to rotate them myself. The shop apparently had ass-umed that the lug nuts were loose, and tightened them to about 150ft-lbs! The first one barely came out, and the second simply snapped. Naturally, there was no satisfaction bringing it back, and I wouldn't have trusted them to drill out the broken bolt in any event. So I took it to my favorite mechanic, who literally broke a breaker bar trying to free them up. In the end, seven had to be drilled out. Fixed that vibration, though.