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Hi guys,

Just came back from a Canberra day trip and experienced some vibrations from front left wheel when i'm around the 110kms mark.

I've experienced a similar thing before with my prev car, which i had 18" wheels on and the wheel was buckled and had to be mended. It was very noticeable as it was a front wheel drive.

Back to my mx5, the vibrations are no where near the same magnitude but it wasn't there before. I haven't gone over any significant ditch (ever) either.

Other than taking it to a wheel mender, what's the best way to confirm whether my front wheel has buckled?

*I hope warranty covers this as they are less than 6 months old!

Perhaps a wheel weight has fallen off, a quick trip to any good tyre shop will quickly tell you what's wrong.

Try putting a rule or straight edge between two bricks or similar so it just touches the rim,turn slowly and observe or bludge a magnetic dial gauge

BadBong wrote:Hi guys,

Just came back from a Canberra day trip and experienced some vibrations from front left wheel when i'm around the 110kms mark.

I've experienced a similar thing before with my prev car, which i had 18" wheels on and the wheel was buckled and had to be mended. It was very noticeable as it was a front wheel drive.

Back to my mx5, the vibrations are no where near the same magnitude but it wasn't there before. I haven't gone over any significant ditch (ever) either.

Other than taking it to a wheel mender, what's the best way to confirm whether my front wheel has buckled?

*I hope warranty covers this as they are less than 6 months old!

just take it to a wheel shop and ask them for a wheel balance.

while it's spinning on the machine they should be able to see if it's got a bend in it. (let them know to look for it)

that way if it's just a missing weight, they'll put a new one of during the balance, if it's a bend they can tell you.



getting a rim rolled isn't too expensive, I got a quote yesterday of $150-170 to fix a buckled rim. However, that's a severe bend that needs to be rolled, welded, and then cleaned up a bit. A simple small bend should be much cheaper to fix.

Try Magman in Punchbowl... I had a warp removed from one of my wheels. It set me back $80.

He's good to deal with, and does quality work.

try the weight option 1st. if it has just become unbalanced because it has thrown a weight, it's a simple fix.

The 60mph "Shimmy" is well-known to MX-5'ers from all over the world.

It's just an imbalance in your front wheels and nothing to be too worried about.

If this shaking is happening at all speeds, then you may have a slightly buckled rim and putting the front wheels on a tyre balancing machine will quickly tell you what's wrong.
If the wheel is buckled, you'll see it wobbling when rotating on the machine.
It's quite obvious.

It may not be buckled on the outside of the rim either, as pot holes and the like can cause buckling on the inside of the rim.

Many years ago, Mrs Benny compained that her car was shaking a lot, especially at higher speeds, so I took it into Heasmans and they discovered that she had 3, yes 3, buckled rims, but they were all buckled on the inside of the rim so you didn't notice it by looking at them on the car!

Thanks guys - I went to my garage guy to check it out and the rims aren't buckled.

The weights were slightly off balance so he knocked an extra one on and it's been okay ever since (tested it out on putty road run recently )

BadBong wrote:Thanks guys - I went to my garage guy to check it out and the rims aren't buckled.

The weights were slightly off balance so he knocked an extra one on and it's been okay ever since (tested it out on putty road run recently )

Good to hear BadBong!
Our 5's are very critical of wheel balance, especially at around the 100km/h mark.