What ended up being the problem on yours?
Would you believe it was the brake rotors?
At first I thought it could be a tire issue because the previous owner had put on a cheap set to sell the car. But the shimmy was still there when I put my Blizzaks on and again when I put a new set of Yokohama’s on this past summer.
I had checked and double checked just about everything suspension wise looking for some component, ball joints, bushings, tie-rods, rack bushings, etc. ,that was worn or loose but nothing.
I installed a new set of pads last year and at the time I did that, the rotors appeared to be good, no grooving or the usual signs of warpage when applying the brakes. I really didn’t need to replace the pads, but I wanted to put a set of Hawks on anyway.
I was at the point of deciding to just live with the issue when this fall I ran into a “grinding” noise issue with the right front brakes. It only happened after many repeated stops and I found that the rotor would grow from the heat and the rust scaled edges would scrape the body of the caliper.
So about two weeks ago when it was time to switch to my winter wheels, I swapped in a new set of rotors and it’s been smooth as glass ever since.
I haven’t measured the thickness of the old rotors yet, but even with the naked eye, they looked noticeably thinner than the new rotors.
My thought is that the previous owner had them turned at some point and the thinner rotor wasn’t able to dissipate the heat as well and they were growing more that they should.
This would also make sense as the shimmy in the wheel would happen when mostly the car was cold.