LexusFan2

Hi,

Have an '07 ES350 with 160k miles that was having an issue with an overly stiff rear suspension. Driving over bumps and potholes would produce a very jarring ride accompanied by a banging noise from the rear. It felt as though there was no travel in the suspension to absorb the bumps in the road. Even small imperfections in the road came through to the cabin very harshly.

Since I still had the original struts, I went ahead and had both rear struts replaced including the shock absorbers, springs, strut mounts and sway bar end links followed by an alignment. To my surprise, the rear suspension remains overly stiff exactly as before with the same jarring ride and banging noise. Any suggestions what it could be? Perhaps one or more of the bushings have failed but would that result in such a drastically poor ride quality?

igzy

For the noise, have a look at this thread:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/es-...nd-repair.html

LexusFan2

Ok thanks for the link. I'll get those replaced. Would those bushings cause a rough harsh ride or more just a knocking noise?

I was looking at some diagrams for the rear suspension and it looks like there are also bushings for the rear trailing arm and control arm. Not sure if these would cause the ride quality issues I'm seeing.

igzy

This was for noise only. Those bushings are for the rear stabilizer (aka sway) bar and won't affect ride feel soft/hard. That would be more of a function of the suspension and tires.

The thing is that ES is very front heavy car with a big V6 FWD, and there isn't much weight on the rear of the car, hence the different feel you may get of front vs rear...

rfopt

I hope you get this resolved. I read a few of your old posts and see that you didn't always have this problem on your car so the issue appears to not just be in your head. Does your car now appear to have less up/down/wallowing motions from the rear? What brand of struts, strut mounts and springs did you replace with? Did you buy the parts separate or did you buy "already fully assembled" quick struts? If the struts are KYB then, from all of my research on this site as well as toyotanation they will ride a little firmer than the OEM. However, they have a little more control.

loliwin55

are stabilizer bar bushings , and end links with bushings 2 different things? i get totally confused! if i do end links do i also stilll need to do stabilizer bar bushings?