Wheel wobble and rear brakes

[Garry]

Took my car to the local independant tyre fitting place to get my other set of wheels fitted ready for the MOT (they have legal tyres compared with the old set). Afterwards, theres a vibration through the seat and steering above 50mph.

The wheels have been balanced when the tyres got fitted a while ago, and during the MOT the tester noted that there was an minor imbalance on the rear braking efficiency, could they be linked to the wheels and the wobble? After getting home, there was a faint smell from the rear wheels, so it sounds like the brakes on the rear may be sticking.

Could changing the wheels have caused this? They used an impact wrench if that affects things.

[ambrose89]

get your wheel brace, look at all your wheel bolts and make sure all of them are tight.
I had a wheel with 3 bolts rolling loose and one hanging on by a couple of threads recently. not good.

and the newly fitted wheels are known to fit your vehicle?

[Garry]

Definitely, they are Cavalier TD wheels, I had them on my previous Corsa with no vibrations or binding. Its only affecting the rear at the moment it seems.

[barty]

if the balance is ok i would check the offset on them. Maybe changing front to back may help but if the offset is wrong they just wont fit

[RobinJI]

Are you using normal bolts? If you're using longer than standard bolts it's possible that they could be poking through and contacting something inside the drum brakes as they turn.

[DavidB]

Sounds like they're not balanced properly - try swapping the fronts to the backs.

[panelbeaterpeter]

Definitely sounds like a balancing problem if it wasn't there before they worked on the car, have you had those wheels on the car before with the same nuts/bolts and no problems? Take it back and ask for it to be done again, and at the same time get them to check for buckles, would be visible on the balancer.

[Garry]

Offset is fine, they are Cavalier TD wheels so normal Vaux ET49 offset, 14ins, not sure of the width but here's how they looked on my last Corsa 1.2 (with -40mm springs)



Those wheels haven't been on this blue Corsa before though. I'm assuming my current 1.6 has correct length bolts as the wheels we took off the car were the same dimensions, and we reused the bolts. These wheels:



Its booked into the local garage to get the wheels checked, and then it'll have the rear drums looked at.

Thanks for all the help so far guys. The vibration could be explained by unbalanced wheels but the binding rear brake is throwing me.

[markbognor]

Try them 90 degrees and then if unnecessary then 180 degrees etc round on the studs, and tighten them in opposites sequence by hand in the air before a final tighten up once on the ground.