So, after getting the coolant leak fixed all has been ok with the Bravo until a few days ago.

However, it has now started shuddering when travelling at around 45-60 mph. This can be quite noticeable when accelerating at these speeds, though it can still be felt slightly when not touching the accelerator.

I did a bit of 'research' on my way home tonight, and found that hard acceleration either side of 45-60 doesn't cause the vibrating.

I though it could be the front tyres, as they had been on for nearly two years (16k miles). However, I had new ones fitted yesterday and this didn't help.

I was wondering if anyone on here has had anything similar, or any ideas of the cause?

Are your tires "balanced" ? That might be one possible reason.

I think the front tyres are balanced - they are brand new, though they feel pretty much the same as the originals.

I would be surprised if the rear tyres were the cause, as the vibrating seems to be coming from the driven wheels (as it is amplified by pressing the accelerator).

It is a wierd sensation and strange that it has suddenly appeared - I haven't hit any kerbs/potholes/etc.

New tyres does not mean balanced. Balancing is done by the people that put them, and sometimes it's just not done properly. I think re-balancing them should be your first goal. It's almost certain the reason for your troubles. I know many cases of badly balanced wheels - new or old, doesn't matter.

The OP has had this problem with both his old and new tyres.

I had a problem like this with my old BMW, not cured by balancing tyres. New brake discs cured it, the old ones were warped. 20k miles later, the problem returned, plus exhaust blow, plus airbag light on, plus 27mpg at £1-20/litre, plus service and MOT due, traded it in for my Bravo

Swap tyres front-back (you should do anyway) and see if that helps. As well as unbalanced brake rotors perhaps the wheel rims could be warped. Swapping front/rear will answer this.

By reading the description of the fault i would say it has more to do with a mechanical/driven component.. possible driveshafts.

Would exact model to you have?

Do the vibration s travel to your steering wheels/pedals?

I managed to dent the inside of my alloy after hitting a pothole...got some steering wheel wobble and took it back to garage as I thought the wheel balancing was out...nowt wrong with the balance but the inside of the rim had a nice egg...got it repaired for £45 and I've got a claim in to the council for the repair...

Thanks for all the suggestions - I'm going to try and get the balancing checked this weekend and probably get the front and rear wheels swapped over.

Unfortunately my car was produced before spare wheels/jacks came fitted as standard (it just has the compressor/gel stuff), so I'll need to get the wheels swapped by someone else.

Does anyone know roughly what rebalancing all 4 tyres would cost, as I've never needed it doing before?

I've also got it booked in at a FIAT dealer next week to be checked over - will let you know what transpires.

Sorry, also meant to reply to Bravojtdm150 - it's a 150 Tjet.

I was also thinking it might be driveshaft related, but I can't get it to replicate the symptoms above or below the speeds I mentioned above, which makes me doubt this.

One thing that did occur to me is that last week I parked in a car park that was in a horrendous state - looked like it was from another planet. I'm wondering if I might have damaged something there.

JD535 said:

I was also thinking it might be driveshaft related, but I can't get it to replicate the symptoms above or below the speeds I mentioned above, which makes me doubt this.

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My dad's Mk3 Cortina had a 2 section propshaft. The centre bearing on that failed, and it caused terrible vibration at, if I remember rightly ( 30 years ago! ), about 30mph. I drove it back from the lake district to Peterborough trying not to do 30mph! So yes, a driveshaft problem could just show up at a certain speed. Like wheel balance / distorted discs, buckled wheels, its all a balalnce problem.

ive worked for fiat recently and a few multijets have come in with vibrations and were found to be faulty... however yours is a T-JET so its much less likely. Sounds stupid but have you checked your tyre pressures?
The dealer will put your car on a ramp and make sure everything is tight underneath.

Let us know.

DickBarton said:

I managed to dent the inside of my alloy after hitting a pothole...got some steering wheel wobble and took it back to garage as I thought the wheel balancing was out...nowt wrong with the balance but the inside of the rim had a nice egg...got it repaired for £45 and I've got a claim in to the council for the repair...

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Good luck with that!
I hit a pothole the size of my entire wheel on a main road once (in exactly the right position for driving on the road) and completely destroyed my entire alloy. It cracked right up four up the spokes and folded the lip down to almost touching the centre. As you can imagine, I spun out. My first impression was to phone the police because of how much shock I was in. So they came, and said they couldn't do much about it, and that it was the council's fault, and I was raging like "I'M TAKING THEM TO COURT!"

So the next day came and I phoned the council and made a claim about the whole thing, but the person on the phone said if I can't prove that it was that specific pothole that caused the damage then I won't win the case.

I gave up there, and just bought a replacement alloy... f**king council...

The roads in this country are shocking!!

Any pothole (and I mean ANY pothole) needs to be reported to the Council, they then have a duty of care to repair it within a certain time frame (I believe 2 weeks but not certain)...if the hole has been reported and an incident occurs the council are more likely to pay out as they didn't fix it in time to prevent an incident.

www.fillthathole.org.uk (I think) is a good site to report potholes on...admittedly intended for cyclists they still do the reporting for you.

Just a quick update to let you know what the problem was - a damaged front wheel rim.

This needs to be replaced and the garage have ordered a new one. In the meantime, they swapped the damaged front wheel with one of the rears. The car still vibrates, but no longer through the steering and it's affected much less by accelerating.

Hopefully the new rim will cure the problem completely.

Think I should have got a Bravo with alloys instead of steels though - presumably they are more resilient!

I had a similar problem my steering wheel when I was driving straight was a few degrees off to the left, so the fiat logo was a bit turned although the car was going straight. When I was changing the tires I found out that the front right tire is a bit used one the inner edge. The problem was that once in the middle of the night I drove in the pothole which I did not see with speed around 60km/h and since than I had that problem with steering wheel and abnormal use of the tire. The pressure in the tires was ok, and tires were centered correctly. I drove the car to the nearest Fiat dealer and I demanded from them that they do the wheel alignment test. They put the car on the table and they test each wheel with a laser, it lasts an hour for four wheels and than they corrected the problem with wheel alignment, they do that with a couple of bolts I think and the whole thing costs 35 euros.My MJET 1.9 bravo now rocks and drives completely different.