TXSTYLE

iTrader: (1)

Fellow Lexus members,

After posting up in the suspension/handling section, I reccommended a "Sticky Post" to the GS forum in an effort to draw more suggestions and or experiences/resolutions to this tremendous problem! I too have had this problem even with normal allignments and balancing! It was pointed out that our cars have much more caster than normal, thus this problem will be ever present! To the contrary another member states his car is lowered and he hasn't had this problem. But it would appear to be the majority of us out there with "lowered" GS's are definitely experiencing this troubling and costly (front tires wearing before rears) situation! I did notice that after lowering my car the caster numbers were significantly worse/off after the fact, and yes I had 4-wheel allignment done when I first lowered it, and twice since then, for a total of 3 allignments in less than a year! I am going to go on a suggestion from a buddy of mine who has a E430 w/ 19' wheels who experienced similar problems, but now gets an allignment every 3000 miles! That's just so friggin time comsuming for me personally, but at the sake of going thru expensive rubber quicker than a year, hey you gotta do what you gotta do! Any and all experiences and suggestions are welcome! This is what it's all about!

N10S1

Sounds like you have a camber or castor issue. Are you sure your alignment guy is doing the camber and castor as well as the toe? Most shops will try to get away without doing the camber or castor and yet still charge you for it. I too have an issue with the inside front wheels wearing out faster, however my ride is an IS300 with stock OEM wheels. Our vehicles (the GS and IS) have adjustments for caster and camber built in (not so for vehicles such as BMW's) so don't let your alignment shop try to sell you some B.S. caster or camber kit, which is essentially a shim they will try to install. I don't know if that helps, good luck.

TXSTYLE

iTrader: (1)

Oh believe me N10S1, if you knew me, then you'd know I don't except too much b.s. from nobody! I'm right up in there under the car shooting the ******, while carefully monitoring what is going on.

drmanny3

I posted my frustration with the alignment issue several days ago. My GS400 has the Eibach springs and bilstein shocks. I contacted Eibach and they told me that their springs are the exact spring sold to toyota as the L tuned spring. (By the way If you have the L tuned springs the car is covered by Lexus, and they cannot void the alignment warranty). They had me measure the height of each fender over the tire and also write down the product number imprinted on each spring. Their conclusion was that I had the correct springs and that the ride height was correct. Since my last post, I took my car to a Firestone dealer and had them do an alignment. As I had expected my toe was out in the front. The caster as I understand is not adjustable, only the camber and toe. Anyway they started in the back first. The printout noted that my camber was barely in on the driver rear at 1.26 and the passanger rear was barely out at 1.27. However the toe on the rear passenger was out. He tried to adjust it. I warned him not to turn the eccentric too much as it dislodges. Well, that did happen and he had to pull the rear wheel off to reset the eccentric. Finally he set the toe in spec for the rear and then worked on the front. I sat in the car and held the steering wheel straight. That turned out to be a mistake. I guess the weight ended up leaving the steering wheel slightly off center. I came back in the next day. They put it on the rack and the passenger rear had gone out again. From a toe of about .05 to a toe of 1.35. They were really concerned that it had not held to the adjustment. They thought the eccentric might be bad and placed an order for one from Lexus. The front was only slightly out of toe and the guy was able to bring everying back in. The reason for the long note here is that I have had the rear do this very thing several times. Either there is something inherently wrong with the design or maybe Lexus did not replace or properly repair that side the last time I brought the car in.

I have owned over 60 cars in the last 35 years of driving. I have owned everything from an NSX to an Austin Healy. While I have had tire wear in the past, a proper alignment fixed the problem, always. Perhaps Lexus has a problem that they donot want to own up to. With the NSX we sued Honda in a class action effort and Honda revised the alignment recommendations and gave everyone who purchased the car new, three sets of rear tires plus alignment for each set. The GS400 is a great car but not an exotic like the NSX. Please help with your comments and expertise.

Thanks
Manny Fernandez, Jr.

TXSTYLE

iTrader: (1)

Hmmmmmmm! Quite interesting there Manny! I shall investigate and inquire w/ my connections in the shop at my dealer to see if they have had a repeating issue w/ factory stock GS's?????? As Manny stated, any and all input on this subject is VERY welcome.

GSman

iTrader: (2)

I too also have noticed uneven wear on the inside shoulder of my front tires. I have the OEM 17" with L-tuned. Both the suspension and alignment was done by the dealer. I recently got some new tires and the tire tech brought the uneven wear to my attention. Needless to say, I plan on going back to the dealer for a re-alignment. I hope this remedies the problem. Under normal driving conditions, I think it's ridiculous that an alignment would be necessary every 3-5K miles!

disc108

if u have inner wear, like n1 said, u probably have a camber or castor issue. if its even inside wear, camber. if uneven inside wear, castor.

N10S1

You know, I gotta say, there probably is some type of TSB issued on this subject. Or some secret TSB that they will perform only if folks complain and mention the exact criteria that matches this concern. I use to do warranty auditing for Nissan and Infiniti's and there were all sorts of 'issues' with tire wear and alignment problems with the Pathfinder and QX4's. This is kinda OT, however with these SUV's, they had issues with the tires 'cupping' essentially the tires were wearing out as if someone with a big ice cream scooper scooped out in a linear pattern, the middle of the tread. This was due to an inherent design flaw with the suspension of the vehicle and was never resolved. Even the current '02 Pathfinders and QX4's have this concern. They tried to mediate this by putting on different brand tires and the brand that had the least amount of this cupping issue was Michelin for some reason.

However, there was never a formal recall for this issue, and folks who owned Pathfinders were advised that it was due to the fact that they did not balance the wheels or do the alignment or that their vehicle is a 4x4 so the tires wear out much faster, etc. Of course the folks with QX4's were offered an one time goodwill offer to replace all four tires with the countermeasure Michelins, but only if they brought this to the attention of the dealer. In a related incident with these SUV's, there was also an issue with the 4x2 versions of these vehicles having a "clunking" issue with the tranny, and as it turned out the vehicles were designed as 4x4's, however not having the front suspension and drivetrain of the 4x4 layout on the 4x2's caused an annoying clunking noise which sounds like a swaybar slapping the underside of your car. The solution for this concern was to simply install the entire front suspension and drivetrain of the 4x4 models on the 4x2, however they would not connect the front half of the driveshaft so folks would have almost all the hardware for a 4x4 model but no 4WD. Of course you get all the beautiful reduced gas mileage, noise, and heaviness that comes with a 4x4.

So getting back to our lexus issue, there is someone out there that has the TRUTH about this tire wear issue, however they will probably not give up the info cause they are employed by the dealer or Toyota. Please someone shed some light on this issue and keep it from turning into a conspiracy theory.

KKelly

I am not familiar with your front suspensions but most are not that complicated. I run a little over 2.0 degrees negative camber on my M5 in front and have some inside wear but it is even. Given the fact your suspensions are not McP. strut you likely do not get quite as much neg. camber from lowering. If it is less than 2 degrees negative tire wear shouldn't be too bad but you will have some (tradeoff for better turn in and grip).

If the problem is severe, it sounds as if one of those adjustment points isn't holding. I had a bad bushing in the rear of M5 (it locates the arm and resists toe changes when you hit bumps) and it really made the inside wear bad on one side of my car. Bottom line, if you are having these wear problems there is likely only one or two points where the problem could emanate from. Toe out is usually the culprit. You either need an aftermarket fix or to not lower your cars. It shouldn't have anything to do with the springs.

TXSTYLE

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for all the responses. I am still investigating various scenarios and will post an update soon.

400

can't help it when read this post.
front tires wear inside is due to too much nagative camber. your camber problaly more than -1.2 degree because of your car was lowering.
caster other hand won't wear any tire but will cause steering problem only. only camber or toe can cause tire wear.

400

TXSTYLE

iTrader: (1)

Well 400, I think we're all in agreement about that, and I for one already knew what caused inside wear. The question is 1. how do we fix it? 2. How do we keep it from reoccurring?

KKelly

TXSTYLE,

Up here in Nor Cal we have a place called Custom Alignment that do nothing but suspensions on all kinds of cars. Look for a place like that where you live --- even some kind of roadracing shop. Camber will cause more wear on the inside for sure but it should be even. If you still can get 18-20k out of a set of tires you are okay. However, toe simply should not be changing. Like I said before, assuming the adjustment point is set, some bushing somewhere else is flexing.

ThemisN

Lexus wont admit it...but this rim guy, asked me...how are your tires holding up? im like, fine, why? and he told me that every single GS that he has had come in (almost all with the 17s) has had inside wear on the tires, not necessarily the fronts...it may have been cause from the rear and u never noticed before u rotated. IN any case, I had the same problem despite 7000k interval on rotations. Lexus denies any problem. Oh well. just keep doing that alignment regularly.

fierce gs

why dont we have everyone whos experiencing this problem write all the info about their rims, tires, and lowering. like how big their rims are, if its ltuned droped, coilover, etc etc. how much of a drop..type of tires and specs...maybe we could find a pattern and bring it down to one specific thing and go from there. maybe its just the ltuned suspension? or maybe is just the ltuned suspension on 17s? i dunno..maybe it might help.