On my Volvo 240 DL 1990, my steering wheel seems to shake on and off when driving. it does it for sure at 80 mph really bad. but 60 and below it does it on and off randomly with no logic to it. my tires are in really good shape(tread is very thick). however, in the two years i have owned my car i have not rotated them or had them balanced. could this be why? or does this sound like a steering/front end problem? just to add also, i had brand new tire rods put on about 8 months ago.

 

did you do an alignment when you had the tie rods added on?

 

ya, they shop said they did(about 8 months ago). the wobbling in the steering wheel didn't really get bad until a few days ago(that I noticed anyways).

 

Tire balance most likely-a weight might have fallen off.

 

I would start with a rotate and balance.

 

I went to the tire shop and one of my tires were almost bald and the rims were bent on all 4. they said they nicer the tire the smoother the ride would be. i ordered some peroni's tires 15" with aluminum rims for $800.00. My goal is to make my 1990 240 Volvo DL ride as smooth as possible. Was this overkill? Or will this give me a significant smoother ride?

 

I suspect the ride should be perfect after all that especially if your rims were bent and tires were bald. Overkill? It all depends on how you feel about it. Post some pics of the wheels when it's done.

$800.00 for rims and tires sounds pretty fair. Hell, just tires for my mud truck are $200.00 each.

 

I read where a 14" inch tire has more side wall so the ride would be softer than a 15" tire which has less side qall. However, a tire shop told me that alloy rim makes a ride softer also. with a high quality tire like the yokohoma avid touring s, which would be more softer of a ride: 1) 14" steel wheel or 2) 15" alloy wheel? i don't care about handling or anything else...just want the ride to be soft as possible.