Clio 172 steering wheel vibrations

[cannock172]

Hope somebody can help me. I bought an 03 plate 172 a few weeks ago and have noticed that when reaching 70mph+ the steering wheel vibrates and shakes, not making the car hard to control but just a bit concerning. Below 60 its fine and at normal road speeds letting go of the wheel the car still runs straight, so I am convinced its nothing to do with the tracking. Have taken the car into my local tyre/brakes specialist they have balanced all 4 wheels and had a butchers at it on the ramp and can find nothing that might cause a problem. As I have only owned it a short while I don't know if it has hit a kerb heavily for example but surely wheel balancing would have shown up any problems like that and the alloys don't seem too bad. Its just had new tyres when I bought it so maybe that could be hiding something?

Just wanted to ask on here if anybody had any ideas before I get shafted by Renault for the courtesy of them trying to sell me some parts and charging me their usual astronomic labour charges,

Cheers,

Mark

[busta]

Certainly sounds like wheel balancing, and some tyre fitters are rubbish at balancing wheels properly so it wouldn't surprise me.

It would definitely be worth taking it to another garage to get them re-balanced before you resort to going to a renault garage.

I would also recommend going to an independant garage rather than renault. Its not likely to be a renault specific problem so there's little point paying through the nose for renault to do it.

my 2p

[cannock172]

Cheers Busta, I have it booked in somewhere else Monday to fit new brake pads so will ask him to have a look. I just want to hopefully give the chap some ideas of where to start looking.

Failing that there is an Renault Specialist in Wolverhampton that I will take it to before forking out for Main dealer, I have a mortgage and 2 kids!!!