Hello, 

 

I drive a 2005 subaru outback.  It's got 198000 miles on it.  I recently had rear breaks and front tie rods and something with lateral links and maybe struts done on the car.  A short while after thisthe car started to vibrate when at about 33-60 mph.  It seems to vibrate most right around 40 mph.  It's not that bad for a car that is that old.  I am looking to sell the car soon; I wonder if there is any major concern about this?  There is no vibration when my foot is not on the gas pedal.  After about 60 mph the vibration is minimal and almost stops over 65 mph.  I took it back to the shop I had the recent work done at and they told me it was related to sway bars and rear driveshaft assembly.  The work would have to be done if I wanted to avoid the vibration/shaking/rattling but didn't say muc more beyond that. 

 

Does anybody have experience with this?  Is it a major concern for a car that may end up with a young driver with mostly about town driving to be done. ?

 

Thank you. 

Hard to say.

probably driveshaft but better diagnostics are in order  

driveshaft will get worse and is troublesome if it does.  

I would take it back to where you had the work done and ask them to look into it.  It might be something they installed wrong.  Maybe not, but worth checking out.

Vibration under load is textbook Ujoint, I see no reason to question that diagnosis.

 

Driveshaft ujoints can fail, and they can fail catastrophically. Replacement joints are about $30, and a decent pain to install. But if it's left too long, and chews through the cap and into the yoke, you're looking at a new yoke, and shaft balancing, or replacing the whole shaft. The vibrations are transmitted right into the differential/transmission, which is not good for the bearings inside them.  If it breaks entirely, it can destroy exhaust components, shift linkages, and I've even seen them break off a chunk from the rear of the transmission.

Here's my saga on diagnosing and replacing them myself:

https://www.subaruoutback.org/threads/driveshaft-u-joint-replacement.465866/