2010+ Buick Lacrosse Body, Chassis and Exterior
e_net_rider
Member Posts: 1,380
in Buick
As the title says, issues related to Body, Chassis, & exterior. Such things as Brakes, Styling, Suspension, Wheels, Tires, Wash and Detail.
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Essensially we should all have near same cars on exterior. Main factors would be which engine, the tire - Michelin or GY, or other possible influences such as a spoiler.
Such discussion might narrow the possibilties for those who have issue with poor milage.
I ask those with poor mileage post please. There are far fewer complaints than those satisfied, which makes you a smaller group, and more difficult to help.
From what I am currently seeing, I hope so to some degree. Not enough miles to make an accurate judgment. Still learning other nuances as well.
I guess I'll have to have them tear apart stuff to replace. Darned! I can only hope it is easy and does not require removing most of the front.
Do you know they actually remounted tires per RFB?
They rotated? Was it per RFB machine or some other rotation to help locate issue on vehicle?
You might check to see if any of the tires have excess weights on wheel at either inside or outside location. I was told years ago by tire man that new tires with less than 1 1/2 ounce of weight are generally good. 1 or less is best.
Has anyone looked elsewhere for the source?
Did it move with moving the tires? Were you even able to tell where the source is?
Front, back, or a side?
With all you've tried so far, it might seem to be something other than a tire or wheel. Possibly an unbalanced brake rotor or drive shaft?
You mentioned the effected speed. Does it change in that range if you apply acceleration or deceleration? Or braking?
When mounted does the wheel run true, that is absolutely no wobble? You might have a dial indicator in your toolbox ;-)
Hope they get this for you.
I feel the vibration in my seat, in the footwell, and up through the steering wheel. The steering wheel has a slight wobble to it. It was worse before they RFB and rotated the tires. Of course they told me with these low profile speed rated tires they easily get flat spots sitting and that it takes some miles to warm them up and run true. They are Michelins, the best of the best. The service manager said the 2010 had Goodyears, and switched to Michelin to help solve this problem. Yes at this point I think it is something other than tires/rims!
The best I can tell in the effected speeds (52-70ish), it will vibrate as you accel up through the speeds. When you level off at any point in that effected area it seems to be rithmic, it vibrates than runs smooth, it vibrates than runs smooth, vibrates than runs smooth. If you decel it vibrates until under the effected speed.
I am waiting to hear what the service manager heres from the GM rep. Im afraid in the end they will say thats just the nature of the chassis and then I'm up the creek without a paddle. My neighbor is a lawyer. He is going to spell out for me the Lemon Law for Indiana, just in case. I just keep hoping GM will come up with a TSB (technical service bulletin) concerning the issue, a fix for this model year already produced, not next model year not yet produced.
I love and am impressed with the LaCrosse, but theres no excuse for the vibration this top of the line luxury car has!
I had some vibration on Malibu that started around 1K and continued till about 3K. It came and went with accel, decel, incline, decline, and did not show up much on flat road. I suspect it was the CV joints breaking themselves in.
What you described might be synco-pathic. One place I've seen it is when imperfect wheels, that is the wheel, tire, and balance, rotate at slightly different speeds and when the problem gets into sync or a harmonic of it the problem shows up and then seems to go away unexplained. The problem is obviously in some rotating part. How bad it is might be dependant upon the tightness of suspension joints. I've driven tighter.
I wonder if they swapped sway/torsion bar?
I've heard that after alignment, balance, and other obvious checks fail, the next stop is frame shop. That is to make sure mounting points of sub frame and rear suspension are correct. That is, the wheels might be aligned but the body is actually askew. It might give you the feeling that one tire is low on pressure and effect the ability of stabilizer bar.
Tires may also be fault of what I am about to describe. Some less than perfect spots in road will set it in a sway motion, side to side. The complaint is that it does not dampen this motion enough. It bounces back and forth several times until it settles out. Some of these seem to be avoided by putting in sport mode, but not all. It gives the feeling that there is play in suspension joints. It could be the quality of rubber bushings used at joints as well. Sometimes it ends up with the rear of the vehicle swaying.
I can imagine this might be pretty dangerous on wet, snowy, or icy roads.
Has anyone else noticed this?
How is your vehicle equipped? Tires, H or 4-link suspension, regular or hyperstrut?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Answering my own question, glass could be laminated without meeting acoustic properties level. Safety glass is laminated glass.
Suspension design will impact such, just as quality brakes aid, but the number one item is tires. If the tires are not up to the job, then brakes don't matter, nor suspension design.
Typically, for much of the year we have rain, that is a high annual rainfall. And locally especially it is common for water to accumulate in puddles from the shoulders on to the road. Hydroplaning is a common risk. Therefore, for me tires must excell in wet performance. And because I have family in show country, they must also be rated well for such conditions.
I'm deeply disappointed with the user rating of this tire compared to others in the same grouping.
So far, no tire dealer wants these tires with less than 500 miles. New tires are about $1500.
At one tire shop, they did not want them either and also felt much better tires were available. He pointed out one thing I was not aware of, the softness of the tire tread. It was quite warm, and definitely soft. He stated, that if I kept them, make sure they are frequently rotated because they are prone to cup. The owners manual shows 7500 miles for rotation. It is not tire or size specific. That distance would be near the top end of recommended rotations. I've seen recommendations from 3500 on up. If cupping is a big issue, as it has been with other GY tires put on GM vehicles, it then seems 5000 miles should be the limit, at least for the first and second rotations.
The softer rubber is usually indicative of great dry traction.
Beware that by time half the tread is worn away, any tire, the performance of it can change very significantly. Especially for roads where the condition is other than dry.
I have no problems with the Eagle RS-A on my CXS. The slightly louder road noise is due primarily to the 19" tire size with the touring package and not an inherent demerit with the tire itself. This weekend I drove my brother's 2008 BMW 528i AWD with the RSA 17" tires and it was very quiet on all road surfaces. Handling was competent and superb but not much different from what described by bobinor in his CXS. So I would have to conclude the RSA tire quality is not a problem. Perhaps you should try different tire pressure settings to see if you get a different result. My cold psi setting is 34 and that work's for me.
By the way, I am not jealous but I cannot understand why a person would spend so much on a BMW. The 528’s interior is quite ordinary. Hard plastics everywhere and the interior feels cramped. Compared to the CXS the BMW 5 series is not a true luxury car and as such does not justify its lofty price tag. But if you're looking for snob appeal and cachet among the beautiful people then BMW does command attention.
That would seem to blow your theory that it is the size that causes the noise, especially since the tire store told me our size is uncommon.
Maybe the BMW is just a quieter ride?
On my recent trip, I watched the tail lights of a BMW, maybe 725 - numbers were hard to read, as it appeared to travel very smoothly. I was rolling side to side with a slight sway. And I believe I was running sport mode.
As to the use rating, I admit that the same tire can act very differently on a different vehicle/suspension, But think that it would have little impact as to the difference between dry road and wet or snowy. That is if this tire moved to a 8 on dry for this vehicle it would still be poor on wet, snowy, & for ride/comfort.
I read some reviews and one claims this tire is to be discontinued.
The windshields have been laminated for many years so that if something hits it the whole thing does not turn into pieces flying at you (not shards). And as I recall they were labeled 'safety glass'.
Starting to get confusing.
The rear windows are not supposed to be acoustic if I remember correctly. Maybe a difference at the edge can be felt between front and rear.
I watching just to see if it improves and do hope so. If I'm lucky enough to gain 1MPG on highway, then I should see nearly the same increase for local driving which as a percentage of MPG would be quite significant. The first tank, mostly local was 20.5 which would indicate straight city of 17 or less. A town car will get 16 under such conditions.
I will be keeping my eyes open for a pair of tiny mirrors that might be mounted to reflect part of the fog light beam or maybe a cornering lamp kit.
I would consider making the fog lamps come on with directional but have no idea how to do it at this point.
Did it affect MPG?
I'm considering the change when vehicle is broken in just to gain the durability and inherant protection of synthetics.
I went to dealer that day, sales. They were extremely busy that day and shuffled me off to service. The manager insisted it had to be done after I got car. *!x&x? He said he'd have to talk to top sales manager. I swung by there Tuesday and he was out, so I talked to managers. First I invited them to find it. Neither could without me pointing it out. They agreed to fix, but now my new car will have non-factory paint. GM, WAKE UP!
Allowing the tread to track in such a way seems that it would also be less likely to force the tread to break grip with the surface, thus safer.
Here is hoping that the body panel placement and welding robot did not have a hangover that day. Or much the same for manufacturing the trunk lid.
But whatever fixes the alignment issue, you can truly say your car was custom built ;-)
As to the closing issue, I think that might be common. I too have often missed the amount of swing needed for it to lock.
In case you missed it, there is a small plastic handle on the inside, right of tag area, for pulling lid shut. I'm guessing they put it there so you can avoid paw prints on your shiny vehicle. Definitely not self closing.
I think the better means for closing the trunk is to use the bulge in the sheet metal at the bottom of the lid rather than the extended Buick emblem. I think if you keep using the Buick emblem it's eventually going to loosen and become a problem. YMMV
I'm intrigued by sound deadening they have available.
I went for a quiet drive last night, little traffic. Even though the air was cool by then, it should not have hardened tires, but I could hear that "whoomp, whoomp" as things rotated. Not loud but definitely there. After about three miles where I could get past 30MPH it seemed to fade. At 45-50 MPH tire noises were still present from contact with surface. Definitely not the quietest I've ridden on, but not terrible, yet noisy enough to interfere with quiet listening of music.
The tires seem much quieter than when they were new. This is the first I new that tires needed a break-in, 600 miles. It is a bit hard to judge because we are entering a season of quite cooler road surfaces which greatly effect noise.
I noticed significant quieting at about 1200 miles.
As far as road noise, you have to consider the road surface first, I think. A nice smooth asphalt is considerably more quiet than an aggregated concrete. On our trip I was impressed by the CXS's quiet ride on asphalt but then all our cars were fairly quiet on it. I think tires became more noisy when M+S ratings became standard.
One other factor that might contribute to cabin noise I considered is the mesh screen that covers the extra-long sunroof opening. Perhaps a more solid cover matching the interior roofing material would better dampen exterior noise
I mentioned somewhere that I had a 84 Topaz diesel that the factory did an outstanding sound and vibration dampening on. The whole underside was sprayed with something that gave it a rimple surface and that painted over.
Ziebart was the only thing I could think of that might be aftermarket. I had a friend whose father had a 56 Dodge Corona that had been Ziebart. This was his everyday car and it looked show room fresh during the mid 80's and it was attributed to the Ziebart rustproofing and coating.
On cornering it now sometimes displays a wobble, duck walk, motion. 90 degree turns that is.
It could certainly lead to scalloping of tire if that is not what is causing it.
At any other time it certainly does not act like alignment.
I will have to keep an eye on it.
Upon returning from cold country where I had to add 3# of pressure, it was of course 3# high at home.
I drove a couple of days until I was able to adjust.
I would definitely recommend against over airing these tires. It gave the feeling of riding on narrow bicycle tires for handling and transferred even slight road imperfections. It also felt like I was riding on center tread with no sidewall flex. A sure way to scuff the tread at the center, along with sense of less traction.
For those who say to air to max pressure on tire, I'm sure manufacturer did not intend tire to be road on with a laterally curved surface.
In an attempt to stop such manufacturers tried a steel band in place of steel cord for awhile. It might be because some were not airing tires up enough but it was stopped because of real world experiences. That solid steel band would suffer metal fatique, crack, and separate with explosive results.
I would add that they also replaced the seat rack, everything but the actual seat, and it also behaves much better than the old one. I wonder if the seat issues mentioned elsewhere would be fixed by this very pricey fix (GM says it's a $500 part).
I see dirty water marks as high as the contour just below the side windows after driving on wet roads. Those 19" wheels sure throw up the muck. I wouldn't want to ruin the stylish looks of my CXS but if splash guards can be added without doing that and they are functional, I would consider them. I'm also concerned about the tires kicking up gravel that could chip away at the finish from mid-door down. Am I imagining a problem that doesn't need a solution?
Unfortunately a truck in adjacent lane already got my hood and I do not see galvanizing like I would have on the Aurora.
If anyone tries an extention and find it works, please post back.
I think some nice chrome extentions might look nice.
Post #716 -- Aug 04, 2010 (10:57 am)
Replying to: bass21279 (Aug 04, 2010 6:47 am)
I did the same thign to my rim. Have you looke dinto any options to have it replaced? Would this be worth an insurance claim?
bass21279, The damage is minor, just a scratch really, and probably one would not notice it unless they were looking very closely. However, the so-called alloy wheel is covered with a plastic coating so I am not sure how the scratch will age.
Post #749 -- Aug 14, 2010 (7:11 am)
Replying to: bass21279 (Aug 04, 2010 6:47 am)
bwia:
bass21279 --- What do you know, the dealer fixed the scratch on my 19" rims and it looks as good as new, so good in fact you cannot differentiate the repair from the other wheels. I don't know how they did it but essentially the body shop removed the rim from the tire, polished the rim and then applied the factory coating to make it look exactly like the other wheels. They said they had done the same thing for an elderly woman who had more extensive damage on both passenger side rims.
Cost? No charge. He said since they had not paired my cell phone or properly explained the operation of the memory seat when I took delivery then the wheel repair was complimentary and on the house. Hmm! pretty nice, even treating me like a Lexus customer. Heck, for the price I paid for this car I think I deserve it. Way to go Buick.