It never fails: You’re late for work and your car is covered with 6 inches of snow. You halfheartedly brush off the powder and hop in, but as you accelerate, your steering wheel starts to shake. Soon, your entire car is shimmying, and you wonder if you’re going to make it to work at all. In most cases, the shaking shows up not while you’re driving on local roads but when you’re cruising at faster highway speeds, or speeding up a highway on-ramp. It’s less likely to happen when your car is moving at moderate or slow speeds. You might feel the vibrations through the steering wheel, the seats, or even the floor of the vehicle. It might feel like something’s loose or that the sound is coming from a hard-to-pinpoint area. It’s really just simple physics. When snow or ice gets packed into the inner recesses of your vehicle’s wheel — like the spokes between the rim and the wheel — it creates uneven mass distribution. When your wheels are installed, they’re carefully balanced to spin evenly. After a snowstorm, however, additional weight from ice and snow thrown up into your wheel well can get stuck unevenly around the wheel. That means that as the wheel spins faster, this asymmetry generates an even greater outward force. The wobble transfers through the axle, suspension and frame, creating vibrations you feel inside the cabin. So what do you do if you’re driving on the highway and this happens? The safest course of action is to get into the right lane while gradually and smoothly decreasing your speed until the car stops shaking. If the shaking eases at lower speeds, you can cautiously continue to your destination before inspecting your vehicle. If, however, the shaking is severe and doesn’t stop at lower speeds, pull over as soon as possible. Once you have pulled over somewhere safe, do a visual inspection of all four wheels. For any ice and snow buildup in your tires or wheel wells, the solution is often pretty low-tech. Use a stick or your plastic ice scraper to manually knock it loose—but avoid metal tools, which can cause damage to wheels or components. If all else fails, head to a car wash with a heated undercarriage spray and remove the buildup quickly.
