Buick Lucerne Vibration Problems

imidazol97 · October 2009

>started the engine, shifted to drive and ran the speed to 30 mph (the other front wheel was on the concrete and not turning) so the elevated wheel was doing 60. The left front, with or without the tire and wheel, gave a real good vibration. Repeating all this with the right side produced no vibration at all. Had to be the left side shaft or joints. By now all the service writers would suddenly have something urgent to do when I showed up so I went to an independent who replaced the assembly for $220

You verified what someone else had already reported. Good for you. ANd I'm glad you were analytical enough in your procedure that you found the vibration. Many people don't realize that in a differential setup, one wheel free is turning twice the speed of the speedometer. So it can be very dangerous.

I also would worry about hanging the wheel free, because the CV joint is flexing more than its usual amount. I would have supported the A-arm some. But I'm glad you found the problem.

What I would do is submit a copy of the bill to the service manager, not the writers, the service manager. Along with the copy I"d list the times you were in and what you told them to check.

I'd also submit the bill directly to Buick by certified mail. I would suspect $220 may show up in your mailbox as goodwill payment. I remember when I disassembled my 67 Mustang because it kept freezing up after a long drive. Ford paid me for the damaged piston and required new gaskets for rebuilding the motor. They did keep the damaged piston.

gsabens · October 2009

I should have included in my explanation that I used a floor jack under the front suspension systems and that the axle and joints weren't hanging free, You're right, if they are hanging free you would be so far out of the usual running position that you could get vibrations from an assembly which does not have a problem.

gsabens · October 2009

In my case the problem was the left inner CV joint and I was told that the joint itself wasn't available, that the whole assembly was the only way to go. The price for the assembly was $120 with $100 labor. Don't expect that at the dealer. I told the service writer at the dealer that I was sure of my diagnosis but he would only agree to check for vibrations, which was a repeat of what they had already done. At that point I decided to go elsewhere and was happily surprised with the estimate.

imidazol97 · October 2009

>I used a floor jack

Thank you. I feel safer for you.

I still would hassle the dealership about a refund of cost.

gsabens · November 2009

I went to my local Buick dealer (Not where I bought my 06) with the invoice for the work I had done at the independent shop and. what do you know ! I'm assured that I will receive a check for the full amount in the next few days. Good for GM !!

bill5983 · March 2010

Hi,
I have the same problem with my Lucerne, what size are the rubber washers, did you use one on each bolt, and did you put them on to the plate that the brake and gas pedal are mounted on? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Bill

jbrich67 · May 2010

Sorry I didn't see this sooner-- I don't visit the forum much anymore since we got rid of our lemon. I'll go ahead and answer your question -- maybe it will help someone else.
If you are having vibration and clunking problems with your Lucerne and no one seems to be able to fix it -- get rid of it! We had ours to the dealer 10 times for those problems, we had about 4 sets of tires, replaced half shaft in the steering, numerous tire rotations, road force balancing, etc. Also unrelated-- the driver's door handle fell off, the stereo blew up and the mechanism that controls the driver's seat and the driver's mirror went bad. This was over a period of 23 months -- we tried to work with the dealer to resolve and we tried to work with a GM troubleshooter to resolve but got nowhere and used lemon law as a last resort.

The most important thing to do is take the car in to the dealer immediately when you notice the problem and make sure it is well documented - particularly mileage because they will charge you for usage even if you win. We were outside of the statute of limitations when our case got to hearing BUT because the problem started with low miles, our usage fee was nominal (we had over 40,000 on it by the time we got to hearing). If you are over a certain amount of miles when you start your case, they'll throw it out. Keep all documentation of any visits to the dealership and make sure they write on them what they did and the service bulletin # if they used one. I also made a spreadsheet with the date, reason for service, how long they had the car, what they did, and mileage each time it went in. This proved to be very helpful when it came time for hearing preparation. We hired an attorney but went through the BBB arbitration process (I think GM requires that). The attorney did a lot of the contact work with the BBB but you can definitely do this yourself. It is actually set up to be used by the consumer. Basically, the case is opened up online, you send in all of your documentation when they ask you to and then they decide if you have a case. If you do, they set up hearing at their office (we went downtown Pittsburgh because that's where I work). Our attorney was there, a volunteer arbiter from the BBB, and a GM rep was on conference call. I spoke for my husband and I because I was the most involved with the ordeal. The GM rep stated her case, I stated mine. The arbiter asked questions of both of us and then the GM rep was allowed to ask me a couple of questions. The arbiter has the option to drive the vehicle -- he did in our case. When we got back, we called the GM rep back and had closing comments. It took almost two weeks for the arbiter to make a decision but he ruled in our favor and GM had to reimburse us for the full amount that we paid for the vehicle. We did not get attorney fees because the BBB feels that an attorney is not necessary to use their system. It is not necessary if you are well prepared on your own-- in our case, I could have done it myself-- our attorney was more hinderance than help most of the time.

My parents just bought a 2010 CXL (much to my chagrin) but we'll see if it's any better than our 2006.

Good luck to anyone who opts to go lemon law -- it can be done! I'll be glad to give further advice if anyone needs it.

edub708 · August 2010

Do you have the address of Buick in Detroit and name of the person with whom you spoke? Was your car a V6 or V8. I have a V8.

Does anyone know the TSB for bad engine mounts? I have seen a few posts regarding mis-designed engine mounts, but I cannot find a TSB about this. Dealer
said they cannot find it either.

edub708 · August 2010

Do you know the TSB for the bad engine mounts? I know you have a V6, but I wonder if it will apply to a V8 as well.

edub708 · August 2010

well the dealer did find that I had 2 bad wheel bearing hub assemblies and 2 bad axles. This did help my vibration tremendously. However, I still have vibration on
acceleration. The dealer did find that my engine mount "strap" was wrong and they adjusted that, but I still feel the vibration, maybe even more so now. I am not even
sure why there is a "strap" on this car. Seems the mounts should auto-align the engine/xmission without some adjustable part. Well that's another top in itelf.....

Can bad engine/xmission mounts cause the axles and bearings to go bad? I would think so since the flex would stress the axles and thus the bearings, but just trying to get another opinion. It seems very strange that 2 hub bearings and axles all go bad within 40K miles. I really think the mounts are bad. I assume this "strap" was incorrect since day 1 since I never had any work done on it until it was recently adjusted which leads to my next question.........if the "strap" was incorrect and my engine/xmission was flexing to much, can this wear out the dampening of the engine mount rubber? I would think so, but again I want another opinion. I think the dealer is checking the mounts and if they don't see a tear or leak, they assume the mount is good? Besides a visual tear or leak, how else can an engine/xmission mount be tested? I think maybe the dampening of the mounts is shot especially since the "strap" was not correct.

Thanks!!!

lucerneowner · August 2010

Not sure about the V8. I don't know the TSB for the bad engine mount (only 1 allegedly bad, the other good). My dealer finally came up with the REAL solution (limiting engine block rotation under acceleration), as described previously. That fix apparently kept the exhaust system from hitting the frame as I accelerated, otherwise passing engine vibration to the chassis and largely by-passing the vibration isolation feature of the engine mounts (i.e., rendering any engine mount problem moot). Still, I appreciated their replacing the defective engine mount, as it might have become the NEXT problem after the primary fix (tightening the engine block motion-limiting strap one notch).

oldguy8 · September 2010

My brake calipers on rear wheels rattle on road surfaces that have narrow joints, I figured this out by littley stepping on brake then rattle stops, anyone else have this problem

hatingmybuick · October 2012

i am at wits end....first of august purchased a 2011 Buick Lucerne CXL..vehicle had vibration and shake in steering, driver side floor board and driver seat...driving on freeway vibration and shake get worse (can then feel it on passenger side)....the faster the car is driven the more apparent vibration and shake get...car has been back to GM dealer at least 6 times now...tire balance and rotation has not helped....last straw was yesterday...dealership finally said that GM Rep told them "common problem, customer has to learn to live with it, NO FIX"....WTH??? so am I stuck with a car I can not drive on the freeway? ummm.....I don't think so...even tho my car has 38000

hatingmybuick · October 2012

i should add...the dealership agreed to fix the problem if we purchased the car...they have changed two of the tires and wanted us to buy 2 more...BS...the dealership has not delivered what they promised, thus broke the contract.....so we have decided to turn this whole matter over to a Lemon Law attorney....will know more sometime Monday...

onefunkar · October 2012

been in an accident???

hatingmybuick · October 2012

hatingmybuick · October 2012

not to our knowledge...carfax report does not show an accident...only show car was a rental return...

tethair · August 2015

SO I had the vibration problem on a 2001 Lesabre Custom, balanced the tires 5 times and changed tires, no fix. So I found the brakes were dragging on one side of the rear as the brake cylinder was jamming crooked and not releasing properly

Now I own a 2008 Lucerne, same vibration and changed pads and rotors and it was good for a couple days. The vibration is back. ( I expect using the parking brake has tightened up tolerances to the rotor) The common thing here is with both cars the vibration seemed much worse for the first 15 minutes of driving and then got slowly better. This to me indicates it is something temperature related. I changed the tires on the 2008 now and it still vibrates. Recently I used a dial indicator on the new brake rotors and found that one rear is not spinning true. This indicates the hub is likely bent as I also see the un-true condition when the dial indicator is run on the hub face. I will replace it but temporarily I spent the time to shim between the hub and rotor with strips of tin tape until the rotor ran through the brake pads with minimal wobble. It does feel better today but will have to run it for a couple of days to see if the vibration comes back. FYI I have already replaced 2 hubs on the other side of the car due to free-play. This car has only 80,000 kms on it (about 50,000 miles)

tethair · August 2015

Update, new hub and this one runs straight but the intermittent vibration is still there. Taking it to the shop to see if they can find something??

tethair · April 2018

So I did get it figured out, finally. I replaced several hubs on 2 different Buicks and have used cheap hubs and better hubs. I also replaced brake discs (rotors) using cheap and high end discs. Nothing worked. Until I put a run-out gauge on the hub and realized they are terrible for running straight. So if the hub wobbles so does a perfectly straight brake disc. I found a shop that had a brake lathe that could machine the rotor while on the car. My shake is gone and has been gone for more than a year. Only if I knew this info sooner.

kyfdx · April 2018

tethair said:
So I did get it figured out, finally. I replaced several hubs on 2 different Buicks and have used cheap hubs and better hubs. I also replaced brake discs (rotors) using cheap and high end discs. Nothing worked. Until I put a run-out gauge on the hub and realized they are terrible for running straight. So if the hub wobbles so does a perfectly straight brake disc. I found a shop that had a brake lathe that could machine the rotor while on the car. My shake is gone and has been gone for more than a year. Only if I knew this info sooner.

Thanks for checking back in. I’d stick with that shop.

imidazol97 · April 2018

Factory service manuals describe measuring the rotor runout on the vehicle and shims that adjust for a variation in the hub to give the rotor runout within the tolerance.

I wonder if runout measured on the hub needs to be measured only at the 5 lug bolt areas where the clampdown areas are.

I have never found a problem with runout in the hub even on replaement hubs. I did have a problem on a car where the old style front hub had lugs that were off center from the center of the wheel bearing of the hub and caused a radial runout in the wheel.

Measuring runout on the rotors and wheels requires the contact point be cleaned very well to remove oxidation and allow the wheel and rotor to mate perfectly against the raw metal.

thecardoc3 · April 2018

imidazol97 said:
Factory service manuals describe measuring the rotor runout on the vehicle and shims that adjust for a variation in the hub to give the rotor runout within the tolerance.

Measuring runout on the rotors and wheels requires the contact point be cleaned very well to remove oxidation and allow the wheel and rotor to mate perfectly against the raw metal.

Any tech that has actually tried to use the run-out shims quickly realized what a very poor solution it was for trying to solve a run-out issue. For one thing, almost no-body stocks the shims. The on the car brake lathe does solve the rotor on the hub run-out issue but then turns around and leaves the door open for a future issue if the rotors are ever removed for another reason later on and the tech isn't aware that they were machine matched to the hubs. Meanwhile, while the rotor may be turned to run true, the run out of the hub still causes the wheel and tire to have excessive run-out.

imidazol97 said:

I wonder if runout measured on the hub needs to be measured only at the 5 lug bolt areas where the clampdown areas are.

Just outside of the studs is usually sufficient. If that is out of spec, a quick check inside of them is advisable before any repair attempts are made.

imidazol97 said:

I have never found a problem with runout in the hub even on replacement hubs. I did have a problem on a car where the old style front hub had lugs that were off center from the center of the wheel bearing of the hub and caused a radial runout in the wheel.

If you do enough of them you will find more and more failures. Experienced techs will measure the run-out between the rotor and new hub and attempt to stack the tolerances prior to assembling the brakes.

Buick Lucerne Vibration Problems

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