Honda Car Forum

Having just spent a grand finding this problem, I thought this might be a good place to put information that might be useful to someone else in the future.

I have a 2000 crv, manual trans, 118K miles. In the last month, during all the frigid cold and snow in northern Illinois, my car developed a low speed vibration.. at 25mph the whole dash would shake.

My first thought was that the cheapo tires were finally shot, despite having a bunch of tread on them. (It worked out to get rid of the noisy tread anyway.) So I got some nice Michelins, and a good alignment. But the vibration was still there.

So I went back, had them recheck the alignment. It was better, but still was shaking at 25 - 30 mph.

Not trusting the tire store, I had a good speed shop check it out. They rebalanced the tires. Again, better, but not gone. I took it back to the speed shop and told them it had to be bad cv joints in the axles. Something up there was shaking like crazy. Eventually they put it up on a rack, with a mechanic holding the speed at 25 and they found the problem. The rear differential mount was shot.

Apparently this is rubber and metal mount had disintegrated, and allowed the differential to vibrate the whole drivetrain. They compared it to another CRV they had at the shop and mine was shot.

So now, $400 later, the vibration is gone. And I have great handling tires as well. It is quite a different car and lets me ride in comfort again without trying to problem solve the whole way to work!!

So keep that rear diff in mind, as your CRV's age.

Part II.

Replacing the rear differential mount did not cure the problem. It was still vibrating at low speeds. So back to the shop and up on the lift. Watch the parts spin... and there it was.

The u-joint at the rear differential was siezed on one side. So the first side would flex, but not the 2nd, as it turned. Thus moving the rear differential up and down at the front, rotating it enough to tear up the the mount.

We took out the drive shaft. Put the car down and drove it.. no vibration. Cool.

BUT.. not so cool.. you can't replace the u-joints. It's the whole shaft for over a grand in parts... or send it out to be rebuilt for about half that. Or go to a junk yard. I took the middle ground.

Anyway, I hope that this proves useful for anyone searching for this low speed, fast vibration. There's no maintenance on them. Just be aware as your crv ages... 10 years, 115K miles..