Vibration 2023 4M, Cali, 15k km

Have you had the alignment checked? When I lowered mine (more) the tyres were making a lot of noise as the wheels on the rear were effectively pointing out wards like \--/ once alignment was done they're back to super quiet.
That's an idea, I'll hold on until checked the drive shafts and CV joints though. Looks like they are a candidate. Will inspect them and see if I could mount a gopro camera to have a look.
 
Is it possible to mount a go-pro camera underneath the van with a view of the prop shaft?
Take a short video while you drive in a manner that causes the vibration.
I wonder if it would show the shaft vibrating?
Maybe it is possible to do the same for each drive shaft?
Yes, will check if possible.
 
From a wheel tyre perspective, it is possible to have out of round tyres.

The tyres can be out of round due to manufacturing defects, quality control and incorrect storage, amongst others.

The out of round is hard to pick up on a traditional wheel balancer in a normal tyre dealer and a Hunter 'Road force balancer' designed for exactly this.

It will measure the roundness of the wheel and tyre individually and will provide a solution as to where the tyre and wheel should be rotated to each other to
minimise these out of round forces, then the wheel is balanced.

It is of course possible for the tyre to be so out of round that road force balancing is not possible. It not just cheap tyres, I've experienced this out of round with Michelin Super sports on and M5 ( Michelin came to the rescue and replaced ) and all four tyres ( Pirelli ) on an E63. Pirelli didn't want to know and I had to bite the bullet on a new set of Michelins.

Unfortunately these machines are thin on the ground with some establishments charging an arm and a leg for a re balance.

Good luck

 
From a wheel tyre perspective, it is possible to have out of round tyres.

The tyres can be out of round due to manufacturing defects, quality control and incorrect storage, amongst others.

The out of round is hard to pick up on a traditional wheel balancer in a normal tyre dealer and a Hunter 'Road force balancer' designed for exactly this.

It will measure the roundness of the wheel and tyre individually and will provide a solution as to where the tyre and wheel should be rotated to each other to
minimise these out of round forces, then the wheel is balanced.

It is of course possible for the tyre to be so out of round that road force balancing is not possible. It not just cheap tyres, I've experienced this out of round with Michelin Super sports on and M5 ( Michelin came to the rescue and replaced ) and all four tyres ( Pirelli ) on an E63. Pirelli didn't want to know and I had to bite the bullet on a new set of Michelins.

Unfortunately these machines are thin on the ground with some establishments charging an arm and a leg for a re balance.

Good luck

Yea, but I have actually had three wheel sets, original alu summer, alu winter and steel all-terrain. The original and all-terrain (new) where carefully balanced (and visually checked for roundness with a block and the car on the stand) and the vibrations issue is the same between all wheel sets, so I it's unlikley it should have something to do with the wheel sets. Possibly it could be something with uneveness or falt with the wheel attachement points, but the CV joints or drive shafts seems a more likely candidate.
 
It's a long thread on the calibord.de about this mysterious issue on the 4M from around 2018 and forward. No clear root cause has been identified. People have exchanged all CV joints, propshaft etc. and the vibrations still there...

 
It's a long thread on the calibord.de about this mysterious issue on the 4M from around 2018 and forward. No clear root cause has been identified. People have exchanged all CV joints, propshaft etc. and the vibrations still there...


Interesting that you say the problem affects vans from 2018 onwards.
As you know, 4Motion has been around a lot longer than that.
I wonder what changed in 2018?
 
Rerar diff mount bushes going soft is another cause.
Aha, I have wondered about something like that as the road undulation seems to create the vibration. If it's a really flat road the vibrations are less pronounced, and I don't mean the condition of the surface more the "waviness" of the road. That indicates to me not being a mechanical rotational unbalance as that should be more constant and not influenced as much by road condition. It's feels more like it is a play in a bearing or bussing somewhere in the drivetrain associated with the rear wheels. Soft rear diff mount fits these indications, but I guess only 1 500 km (when I bought it) argues against them being worn out or damaged.
 
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Interesting that you say the problem affects vans from 2018 onwards.
As you know, 4Motion has been around a lot longer than that.
I wonder what changed in 2018?
Yea, that seems to be the consensus in the German thread. There are discussions of a batch of fault CV joints affecting model year something like 2018 -2023 which VW will exchange without questions. As far as I can conclude form info in the thread, my model year 2023 should also be in the risk zone. But I read the thread mainly with Google translate so treat this info with a grain of salt...
 
Engine: DNAA
Gearbox: DSG
Thanks. So a new generation of T6.1 engines.

Have you checked for sawtooth type of wear on tyres - both front and rear tyres?
NKG-254_Sahalaita_oik_etu_20161029_edit.jpg


It vibrates at 80-90 km/h,
Further, unaffected by rpm, gearshift or accelerating/power/freewheeling.
Can you confirm the vibration is the same on all gears 5, 6 and 7 at speed bracket 80-85 km/h, both accelerating and decelerating (without brakes)? On the same stretch of a road.



As another check I would try to rule out Haldex system completely out of the equation.

It should be easy by removing fuse SH17 (20A) under left front seat. The fuse supplies power to Haldex controller and it's pump thus making the vehicle fully front wheel driven.​

As a side effect you'll get dash warning about traction control and ABS. Alternatively you could unplug (near the pump) the Haldex pump only - this might get unnoticed on dash.​

Meanwhile, probably better not to look into these as these are observations of older generation engines.
For DSG​
For manual gearbox​
 
Thanks. So a new generation of T6.1 engines.

Have you checked for sawtooth type of wear on tyres - both front and rear tyres?
View attachment 275853




Can you confirm the vibration is the same on all gears 5, 6 and 7 at speed bracket 80-85 km/h, both accelerating and decelerating (without brakes)? On the same stretch of a road.



As another check I would try to rule out Haldex system completely out of the equation.

It should be easy by removing fuse SH17 (20A) under left front seat. The fuse supplies power to Haldex controller and it's pump thus making the vehicle fully front wheel driven.​

As a side effect you'll get dash warning about traction control and ABS. Alternatively you could unplug (near the pump) the Haldex pump only - this might get unnoticed on dash.​

Meanwhile, probably better not to look into these as these are observations of older generation engines.
For DSG​
For manual gearbox​
>Have you checked for sawtooth type of wear on tyres - both front and rear tyres?
No, I can do that, what would that indicate?
>Can you confirm the vibration is the same on all gears 5, 6 and 7 at speed bracket 80-85 km/h, both accelerating and decelerating (without brakes)? On the same stretch of a road.
Yes, same on all gears at the same speed and I have tested going uphill with the engine working harder, and costing downhill with no noticeable change in vibration on the same road. Have not tested accelerating and decelerating (without brakes), isolated, but I drive to work on 90 km/h road and accelerate and decelerate in and out of cues, so I guess I would have noticed a change. Anyways will observant next time.
> removing fuse SH17 (20A) under left front seat.
Ok, will test that, assume the warning be reset when plugged in again? I have an OBD11 so could also reset error codes.
/Thanks
 
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>Have you checked for sawtooth type of wear on tyres - both front and rear tyres?
No, I can do that, what would that indicate?
Mainly just curious. On my case I suspected the sawtooth wear pattern appeared because the Haldex effectively locked front and rear axles thus I was driving a kind of front/rear diff-lock on.

Ok, will test that, assume the warning be reset when plugged in again?
Yes, the dash light will disappear when plugged in. However, the fault codes remain in memory..

I have an OBD11
Well, that's even better than removing the fuse.

Plug it in > Control units > All wheel Control > Live data > Tick the following
  • Front left wheel speed
  • Haldex clutch status
You should see degree of clutch engagement (percentage).

Just monitor the value at your vibration range - different gears - accelerating/decelerating - touching brakes.

You should see the percentage increasing when pressing harder, up to a certain point. And it should return back to zero when foot off the throttle.

Especially keep eye on that you get the zero during vibration when foot of the throttle.

You should NOT get the behaviour marked as orange or red below (percentage value not changing). The behaviour should be similar to as marked green throughout speed range.

1740303741172.png
1740303756092.png

I think you can set up also a data recording in OBDeleven - under Charts (can't remember the details how-to but should be fairly obvious). Would be interested to see a log.
 
I am a great believer of tyre symmetry across all of the vehicle regardless of drive system but imperative in All and 4Wheel Drive systems. I would never even mix manufacturers or types of tyre from even the same manufacture. Even though most on road AWD systems will allow some small amount of dissimilarity negotiating bends road surfaces due to different radii that wheels follow when turning ect I believe that unnecessary stress is placed on componentry if lack of attention is placed on this. So are all tyres in good condition the same marked size and preferably same manufacturer. Used vehicles often come with tyre replacements and sellers often not too particular to what is chosen as a replacement. Oh and by the way, I would never trust any garage or tyre supplier to take tyre pressures seriously with regards to accuracy, always measure ones own. :)

Side note, unrelated, years ago I owned various Ex Military Vehicles some still around. Some used 900x16. i measured several different brands circumference and found large disparity between manufactures. I seam to recall cross ply construction. I would replace tyres with modern Michelin XL 900x16 tyres which were very good tyres the best possibly at that time for my use but one did not even need to measure the difference or even place one over the other just stand them up against a wall side by side and the size disparity was huge yet occasionally I wold see someone with one or more of the Michelin while still having some old fashioned Bar Grips on other wheels. So I became a little anal about not mixing tyres, Possibly some Neanderthal genetics perhaps or just autistic.:laugh::unsure:
 
So are all tyres in good condition the same marked size and preferably same manufacturer.
Very interesting information, didn't know it was so sensible.
Anyways, current wheelset is brand a brand new: Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus 235/65 R17 108H XL (GAN) Steel Wheel 17" x 8" ET40 1200Kg PCD 5/120mm. So they are 5 mm out of VW spec with ET40 and circumference is also slightly out of VW spec. But they work fine, no rubbing anywhere and I also run fine with snow chains on front wheels, and the speed was off by about +7km with original rims, now it's actually spot on. Note that a California are lowered some 3 cm in the back I think to pass under the 2 m hight, it was tight get in and fit the snow chains in the front and in the back it wouldn't been possible. But I have also used the original which were only driven about 10 000 km, and studded winter tires alos only about 5 000 km when I bougth the van. And the original and the All Terrain has been carefully balanced and visually checked for roundness. I really doubt that if I put any of these wheelsets on another 4M that they would create vibrations. Initially the All Terrains where just ok balanced which made the vibrations worse, but after careful balancing they are on par with the originals. The vibration measurements earlier in the thread are from the All Terrains.
Just a picture of a small adventure I ended up 100 m from the main road in Austria the other day. A really large snow blower sorted me out. Now I'm in Italy.
/Thanks

20250214_082409.jpg

20250222_113218.jpg
 
Mainly just curious. On my case I suspected the sawtooth wear pattern appeared because the Haldex effectively locked front and rear axles thus I was driving a kind of front/rear diff-lock on.


Yes, the dash light will disappear when plugged in. However, the fault codes remain in memory..


Well, that's even better than removing the fuse.

Plug it in > Control units > All wheel Control > Live data > Tick the following
  • Front left wheel speed
  • Haldex clutch status
You should see degree of clutch engagement (percentage).

Just monitor the value at your vibration range - different gears - accelerating/decelerating - touching brakes.

You should see the percentage increasing when pressing harder, up to a certain point. And it should return back to zero when foot off the throttle.

Especially keep eye on that you get the zero during vibration when foot of the throttle.

You should NOT get the behaviour marked as orange or red below (percentage value not changing). The behaviour should be similar to as marked green throughout speed range.

View attachment 275931
View attachment 275932

I think you can set up also a data recording in OBDeleven - under Charts (can't remember the details how-to but should be fairly obvious). Would be interested to see a log.
Fantastic, I'll give it a go
/Thanks
 
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Mainly just curious. On my case I suspected the sawtooth wear pattern appeared because the Haldex effectively locked front and rear axles thus I was driving a kind of front/rear diff-lock on.


Yes, the dash light will disappear when plugged in. However, the fault codes remain in memory..


Well, that's even better than removing the fuse.

Plug it in > Control units > All wheel Control > Live data > Tick the following
  • Front left wheel speed
  • Haldex clutch status
You should see degree of clutch engagement (percentage).

Just monitor the value at your vibration range - different gears - accelerating/decelerating - touching brakes.

You should see the percentage increasing when pressing harder, up to a certain point. And it should return back to zero when foot off the throttle.

Especially keep eye on that you get the zero during vibration when foot of the throttle.

You should NOT get the behaviour marked as orange or red below (percentage value not changing). The behaviour should be similar to as marked green throughout speed range.

View attachment 275931
View attachment 275932

I think you can set up also a data recording in OBDeleven - under Charts (can't remember the details how-to but should be fairly obvious). Would be interested to see a log.
I'm currently in the mountain so can't induce the vibrations as there are only short stretches of straight road. But I tested it nevertheless. Can't find a log function in ond11. Looks like the Haldex works as described engages when accelerating and going dow to zero when lifting of the throttle and defenitley when breaking. I will observe mor carefully when on an autostrata and see if I can record the screen.
 
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A screen recording of the Haldex diff working. I think I have to make a new one more carefully observing the small changes in values....
 
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Some observations:

(1) Look closely at "degree of blockage" from 36 to 55 seconds. I think you were on gear 7 - speed is quite steady (83...87 km/h) thus neither much acceleration nor deceleration. The "degree of blockage" is full time at 7.48% which means front and rear axles are maximally (for that speed) locked together - the same for both foot off the throttle and foot floored. Shouldn't be when throttle is eased off. Also should be at the maximum only when seriously accelerating.

(2) From 2:05 to 2:21 - gear 6, speed varies 80...86 km/h but "degree of blockage" stays at 0% - thus fully front wheel driven (see RED in my tables for 6th gear)

(3) From 2:22 till end - gear 7 - decelerating from 81 km/h downto 75 km/h but "degree of blockage" at 7.48% - thus keeping front and rear axles locked together (see ORANGE in my tables for 7th gear).

PS. The 98% "degree of blockage" seen on video is just a Haldex self-calibration spike. Haldex every now and then tests maximum pressure the pump produces - lasts just for a fraction of a second. Lucky to capture the moment.
 
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