I agree with Peter N. I had a tyre go out of shape on the rear of my mk1 Focus. The noise and vibration at speed made it sound like a wheel bearing was on its way out. In reality, the tread had a weird "stepped" shape to it, as well as being considerably out of round. This was a quality brand tyre with 6mm of tread left, and no evidence of other damage. No explanation for it. New tyre fitted and all was well.

Any decent place will 'stick' balance weights to the inside well of alloys.

You'll have to take the wheel off and have a look at it's backside to see them.

There are weights available that are designed to be clipped on alloy rims, but they probably break the lacquer.

Try swapping your front and rear alloys - you might just be shifting the problem from the front to the back, but it may stop the steering wheel wobble and give you some clues as to the cause.

The steering wheel wobble I experienced on my old Focus was down to a buckled alloy, which looked fine from the outside and even passed a couple of MOTs, but the flat spot was pretty severe when viewed from the inside and gave a definite bulge to the tyre, which was visible when the wheel was spun.

Edited by mikej on 06/04/2010 at 03:39