Steering wheel wobble

by Mark
(Warrington Cheshire)

Hi, I will start with the bare facts of the matter:
I have a 2004 Nissan Almera (not a bad car by all accounts) however I have been offered a swap for a 2002 special edition Jimny, a lovely looking car in good condition, with bad shuddering on the brakes that turns out to be the rear drums.
He is giving me replacment ones, and has told me on the day we are meant to swap that it has a wheel wobble.
Now having stumbled across the dreaded "death wobble" as it commonly known on the internet, I am a little (or a lot, should I say) concerned. I am no stranger to spanners as I do all my own repairs; it's the cost I am thinking about, I don't want to swap and find out its going to cost a fortune to repair.
I have had a Suzuki Jimny a few years ago with no problem at all, yet I have only just heard of this problem, so to sum things up and the advice I am looking for is this: is it worth swapping even with this problem?
Like I said, I don't mind a little work. It's the cost that is the issue, and I really need a small 4x4 for practical reasons as well as wanting to play too.

I just cant make a decision as what to do, so any imput and advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

Comments for Steering wheel wobble

Click here to add your own comments

Inheriting someone else's woes...
by: Bek

Hi Mark,

Sorry about the late reply, we were hoping that other people might give their opinions first!
Obviously this is such an issue that nobody wants to go there!

As you've probably seen on the internet already, the 'death wobble' apparently has different causes, and potentially you could 'fix' one thing only to find the cause is something else.
You could be 'fixing' as a process of elimination. This could get expensive.

Personally I would not buy a Jimny that already had the wobble come out. But I have only ever bought a Jimny new.

Read about Nige's experience here.

Have you asked why the owner can't be bothered fixing the Jimny himself? Or what other fixes he's done? Or why he's sure it's the rear drums?

Please keep us posted as to what you've decided and how it all goes.

cheers,
Bek

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Jimny Family Q and A.