Shaking at 60

When I bought the XJ, the guy told me it shook at 60 and it was ball joints. When I took it in for inspection, my mechanic said ball joints were fine. I had both front u-joints and front brakes done for inspection, and the u-joints helped the shake a little, but not much. The magic number is 59-60, and gets progressively worse as speed increases. The shake feels like it is mostly from the passenger front side, and a little from the driver's front side. It moves the steering wheel left to right a little when it happens, too. Front tires are prematurely worn from this, too.

I'm hoping someone on here can figure out what it is, before I go to my mechanic and empty all my lift money when I can figure out what it is myself and fix it on the cheap.

Thanks in advance!

Have the tires been balanced? That's where I would start first...

not that I know of...would it really cause that bad a shake? I'll see if I can get a buddy at the Goodyear to check em out for me.

Have you looked over your steering to make sure that everything was tight and there wasn't alot of play in the rod ends, etc?

MahnkenVille said:

not that I know of...would it really cause that bad a shake? I'll see if I can get a buddy at the Goodyear to check em out for me.

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Absolutely. I've had that problem several times on more than one XJ. Tires need to be balanced every so often and it gets worse the bigger they are. (even if you have stock size tires they're bigger than car tires) I seem to remember the last time it happened, it would start to wobble at around 55...and then stop again over 80. :laugh3: I had the tires balanced and it was as smooth as a (broken) Caddilac...

First thing with this type of problem is ALWAYS to rotate both front tires to the rear. If this corrects or even changes the symptoms, concentrate on those 2 wheels/tires.

If it makes no difference, then something is worn and you need to get a shop that specializes in front end stuff (if they have an alignment rack, that can be a clue) to take another look and see if you can find the worn component(s).