When I start off in first from a stop my steering wheel wobbles slightly an then goes away. BUT at high speed 60 miles and above the car seems really numb off center. tie rods? tie rod ends?

it might be a miss shaped rim. thats what was wrong *** my mom's van. the rim wasnt a circle it was warped so it made the car wobble. it might also be the brake.

lol, that title made me laugh... Well anyways, what do you mean numb off center? I vibration through the steering wheel at high speeds usually means teh wheels need to be balanced, but that doesnt sound like what your describing. It almost sounds like your describing a chattering clutch (not saying thats it though...)

Numb off centre means when you are driving in a straight line and move the wheel there is no feel initially or no movement of the wheels until it moves more...hense "numb". A more primitive term is "loose" feel sorry to confuse you. hmmmm.

Replacing the tie-rod ends would be excuse to get an alignment (or vice versa ;)). If the tires are fine, those two things are what I'd try first, personally.

also....did you happen to have the tires installed by a garage which uses compressors?

A friend had hers done by one of those stores as she was rotating the tires for free and the messed up the bolts by cross threading.

I drove her car on the highway once and could feel the tires wobbling at 70mph.

Another thing to consider.

FYI, if you're going to remove the tie rod ends, make sure you have some white out, to mark the original position of the tie rod ends....otherwise, you'll be trying to get the tie rod ends to the right position. pm me if you have any questions concerning removing the tie rod ends.

what is cross threaded?

Originally posted by Fonque
what is cross threaded?

Its when the lugnut isnt started on there correctly then tightend down with an impact wrench. Its normaly done by gas station monkeys who claim to be mechanics..:D

SentraSER is correct...which brings us to another point.

Anytime you have to bring your car in to a wheel & brake shop (or any other shop for that matter), make sure they tighten your wheel's lug nuts by hand with a torque wrench.

Even if you tell them at the service desk to do that, sometimes the "mechanics" do not read the instructions and continue to do it with the air wrench (happened to me both times I was there), which is another reason you need to stay with your car when they're working on it and ask them politely to use the torque wrench.

Note: This doesn't mean that there is not a possibility for cross threading....just minimizes the possibility....and also allow you to change your own tires when required.
(have you tried changing your tire when they use the air wrench....it's almost impossible to do it at home without a torque wrench...imagine having a flat and tyring to change the tire on the road)

You might want to tell your spouses about this too. Like my friend's spouse in the earlier post...he's going to make sure the next time they bring the car in to the shop that they hand torque and not air wrench it in.

Another reason for wobbly feel of the wheel could be the steering column ( or something like that).

Was watching "2 guys & a garage" a few weeks ago and heard them mention about repairing some bushing/link on the steering column on a domestic car.

Orion, if all else fails, go to this website for the details of the repair:
http://www.twoguysgarage.com/site/preshow.php?PreID=113

Hope that helps.

Melvyn

I also want to add that they do make torque "sticks" for diffrent torque specs for impact wrenches, its acctually just comes down to the "mechanic" starting each lug nut on there atleast two or three turns before using the torque wrench on it. :)