93 VR4 - Sticking brakes or wheel bearings?

[mrappe]

My car is daily driven to wok and back down a freeway (18 mi each way).
For the past several months I get a shimmy to the steering wheel that is noticed mostly between 55 and 70 mph. I just noticed last week that it was worse. Yesterday, I noticed that it was worse when I was driving to work on the freeway so I started to slow down and then it seemed like the car was driving with the brakes on. It would hardly go. In first gear I made it off the ramp and pulled into a parking lot. When I stopped the car felt like the hand brake was on but it wasn't. While I waited for a tow I saw a small amount of smoke coming from the front wheel, after about an hour I tried to move the car and found that it moved easily back and fourth in the parking spot but I had it towed anyway. Can anyone suggest what I should look at to diagnose the problem? In the last year I have replaced the front two rotors, front and rear pads, front two tires and have had all of the wheels balanced and aligned to get rid of the shimmy problem to no avail.

Thank You,
Mike

[Alt0id]

I guess its possible a caliper isn't releasing properly? Not sure at all, this is coming right out of the air so I may be wrong, but it sounds like it is taking a while for your brakes to release,

[bad84kat]

Shimmy's at a given speed and only at a given speed are usually drive shaft universal joints. The sticky brake feel sounds to be seperate. Did you replace brake parts with OEM or aftermarket? If yor hand brake works well try driving on highway and slowly apply hand brake. If shimmy disapperars problem is rear brake related or rear wheel bearing. Rear wheel bearings usually start to growl before they get to badly worn to actually grind you to a stop. At the given speed does the shimmy get worse or better going around corners?

If you have this pulling you to a stop feel again. In a safe area drive along, let off the throttle and lightly grip stearing wheel to see if the car pulls to left or right. Grabbing brake will pull car that direction. Jack car and try to spinning wheels (car not in gear and hand brake on).