Discussions

When my wife wrote off her car last spring I had just bought a newer vehicle for myself a few weeks earlier. We usually alternate buying newer vehicles every couple of years to spread out the financial pain. So anyway, we needed to find something to replace her car that wasn't too expensive and I found a nice 96 Intrepid with lower miles and very reasonably priced. It was safetied and had had some brake work done. I noticed when I test drove it that I could feel some shimmy in the brake pedal. No problem,I figured they never turned the rotors when they did the brakes, so when I got the car home I picked up some new inexpensive rotors from Canuck Tire and put them on. Shimmy gone. 6 or 7 weeks later I drive her car and the shimmy in the pedal is back. That's strange. Maybe a wheel is a bit bent. I put the back wheels on front and the shimmy is gone. A month or so later I notice the shimmy is back. I even noticed on that really smooth pavement on 18th street, at low speed I could see a little shimmy in the steering wheel. Hmmmm, that's not brakes then. The tires weren't that great and maybe a cord had let go or something so I bought 4 new tires. Shimmy is gone. Well I drove it this morning and I can feel the damn shimmy in the brake pedal again. I have a feeling that if I jack the car up and retorque the front wheel nuts the problem will go away for a while because that's the only common denominator here. The shimmy starts out slight and gets worse if left for a while. Anyone have any ideas. Should I try new wheel nuts maybe? The car has those polycast wheels(plastic coated steel). Are they known to give problems? My bet is someones had a similar problem in tha past. Anyone??