As of fairly recently my car has started to feel like it's been going over bumps whenever I turn. Whenever I go around a turn it feels like I'm repeatedly driving over a couple of small curbs, and at night I can see the light from my headlights bob up and down when it happens so it's definitely not just some minor vibrations or something like that. The bumps quickly start to dissipate once I start driving strait again, and by probably 20-30 feet after a turn it's driving pretty much normally (aside from maybe some really minor vibrations, but nothing like while turning). Turning slower seems to lessen the effects of it, and there's no noises or anything going on when it happens.

I found some threads with somewhat similar issues
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and did some web searching, and found some potential causes could be with the tires being unevenly worn, issues with the transfer case or power steering, ball joint, or strut mount. That said, with my lack of mechanical inclination and having trouble finding something that exactly describes what I'm dealing with I'm not sure if any of those would actually be the case or not.

I know what I should really be doing is getting it to a mechanic, but I have some pretty long shifts coming up and might not be able to do so for a little bit, so I was hoping in the mean time to see if I could get some insight from anybody who's had this issue before or would have a better shot at guessing what's going on than I would. Any help would be greatly appreciated, and I'll make sure to keep the thread up to date with any new info I get.

If it's doing it only in tight turns, a bad CV joint is the most likely culprit. If it's doing it in any old turn you may have a locked-up viscous coupling on the rear diff that's causing the rear to bumpety-bump whenever the wheels are turning at different rates.

VStar650CL wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 30, 2023 6:18 pm

If it's doing it only in tight turns, a bad CV joint is the most likely culprit. If it's doing it in any old turn you may have a locked-up viscous coupling on the rear diff that's causing the rear to bumpety-bump whenever the wheels are turning at different rates.

Thanks! Yeah it was on all turns. Lol, I say was because a few hours after making the post I had a probably unrelated issue of a broken transmission while driving which turned into a fun adventure. It's in a shop, about to be moved to another shop that can work on the transmission, and if it makes economical sense to have the transmission fixed or replaced I'll see if they can look into that as well and update the thread.

Might have been the tranny causing your bumps, then. There's a diff in the front final drive too, not just the back one.

Had the same issue on my dad's car and it was getting worse with every next drive. Few days later the driveshaft got broken on the run. So I would not recommend to use it until you verify that the drive shaft is in a good shape.

One last final update, that second shop correctly diagnosed the issues as a broken transmission cable and bad drive shaft, @rhp23 you were right on the money with the drive shaft being broken. As of this morning the it's no longer bumpy / wobbly and can shift again (a better outcome than having the transmission replaced, which is apparently in fine condition).

If anybody finds this in the future, yeah, definitely get it to a shop quickly to dodge the trouble of breaking down while driving and the costs of having it towed. @VStar650CL and @@rhp23 thanks again for helping me troubleshoot, the help is greatly appreciated; and best of luck to anybody reading this in the future trying to diagnose similar issues.