Steering wheel vibrating or shaking? It could be just a pebble

Steering wheel is vibrating or shaking at a certain speed, and little does the driver know that this problem linked to the tire can be easily solved...

Stones in the grooves of the tires can cause vibrations in the steering wheel (Photo: Shutterstock)
By Boris Feldman
Published on 2026-04-28 at 09:00 AM
Updated on 2026-04-28 at 09:30 AM

The steering wheel is vibrating at a certain speed, always a little higher, above 90 km/h. You find it strange, because you remember having recently taken the car to the wheel balancing. What can it be?

Some hypotheses: in the first of them, the tires were changed, poorly mounted on the wheels and even the placement of the small weights was insufficient for dynamic balance. This happens more often in special tires such as runflat tires (which run really deflated) or wheels with large rims (18″, 19″), or special tires for cars with 4×4 transmission.

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Another possibility is that the position of the yellow spot on the side band, which indicates the point of least weight of the tire, was not observed during assembly. Which should be positioned next to the wheel valve, its point of greatest weight.

Or else, a simple and easy-to-solve cause for the vibrating steering wheel: you entered the earth, a pebble fit into the tire groove and caused the unbalance…

Boris Feldman

Journalist and engineer with 50 years of experience in the automotive press. Led newspaper and television teams and hosts the AutoPapo program on radio stations across the country.

Boris Feldman
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