jwtxcx

Hey guys! I am currently meeting a weird vibration on my 2013 GS350 AWD.

I bought this car in 2016. It came with 18'' oem wheels. In May 2017, I upgraded them to 19'' aftermarket wheels. Everything was okay until half a year ago. When I drive it over 60 mph on highway, I start to feel vibration through seat, floorboard, and pedals. When driving over 75 mph, the whole car seems to shake and the seat is like a massage chair. The steering wheel does not really shake but i can feel the pulsation when holding it on highway.

Here are what I've done to try to find the problem. First, I went to Lexus dealership. The service manager said all 4 tires are bad. Wheel not bent. I did not want to make a quick decision so I went to Discount Tire and let them make a road force balance. They said two rear rims are bent. They let me see them on the spinner and I confirmed that they are slightly bent and were wobbling. I sent these two rear wheels to the local wheel repair shop and get them repaired. It improved nothing. The car shook as before. Therefore, I bought a set of new wheels (Same brand but different model) through tirerack two weeks ago and put them on my current Goodyear Eagle F1. Still vibrates.

I started to suspect that the problem is the tires. I bought a set of new Uniroyal Tiger Paw last week and put them on. Still vibrates! I was thought the installer did not balance them right so I let DT road force balance them again and check the alignment and suspension component at the same time. They checked them and said that balance is a little off. Alignment and suspensions are all good. They rebalanced them and let me test it. Okay, I tested drive it on the highway. Still, keeps vibrating.

The weird thing is: when I drive on asphalt highways, it will vibrate; When on concrete ones, the vibration was reduced a lot! The tricky thing is: when driving on new surfaced asphalt highway, it vibrates a lot. But the old roads will produce less vibration than those new roads. I count the wheel weights on old wheels and new wheels. For the old 4, front two are 1.25oz each and rear two are 3.25oz and 3oz. But for the new ones, front two are 0.75oz and 1.25oz. Rear two are 4oz and 5oz. Even more than old wheels!

I already have no idea on this problem. Anyone has the same issue?

LeX2K

Any way you can put the wheels and tires on another vehicle to test? Are you sure you don't have a bad strut? This can cause the tire to vibrate up and down.

jwtxcx

I don't have another car so I have no chance to test it. The vibration feels like coming from the rear. I did a tire rotation yesterday and still feel the same symptom. The tech checked the shocks/struts visually and pushed the car up&down and said they are good.

jwtxcx

I don't have another car so I have no chance to test it. The vibration feels like coming from the rear. I did a tire rotation yesterday and still feel the same symptom. The tech checked the shocks/struts visually and pushed the car up&down and said they are good.

drgrant

I feel your pain, in my case it was just banged up wheels and road forcing mostly fixed it, although bad runout on tires can exacerbate it, but you've already proved that out by swapping the tires, and the odds of having two bad sets of tires are pretty low. Did they give you a printout of the road force values?

Also, with some aftermarket wheels.... I assume you have the correct hub centric rings installed, right? Although I would imagine if you had the wrong ones, or none at all things would be very bad, very fast, worse than what you are experiencing.... but if the whole car is shaking at 60 that is horrendously bad.

Maybe find a shop that has one of those machines that can spin the wheels independently while its on the car? (to see if one wheel induces vibration) etc. If you have a bad wheel bearing or something, this would
prove out, etc.

Do you still have your original wheels/tires?

Also note- sometimes even with rim straightening places I'm of the mind that the damned things will never be like the way they were new. Mine were much better after, but I still consider them "slightly compromised".

-Mike

peasodos

iTrader: (1)

Go back to 18's the 19's are more susceptible to damage from potholes because of the low profile tires.

jwtxcx

Thanks Mike,

They don't give me the printout. They just told me that they set the road force within limit. I have installed the hub rings, both old wheels and new wheels. They are correct size I am sure.

I just sold my OEM ones cuz my old wheels run great until this year. Too confident haha.

Actually, I am suspecting if there is something wrong with the rear wheel bearing. I googled and watched some youtube video. They said bad wheel bearing will make whirring/huming noise. And, turn the steering left/right will change the sound. If the rear wheel bearings are worn, will it make the same?

jwtxcx

Yeah the OEM wheels without any problem. Start to miss the smooth ride on my 06 GS300.

bclexus

This seems to be the best advice, considering what all the OP has done so far. Spinning each corner's entire rotating mass (consisting of the tire, the wheel and the brake rotor) it will show up right away when they spin it up to 60+ mph. It might be found that the OP has a brake rotor that is heavily rusted or out-of-balance. If all four corners check out okay by spinning the entire mass, then it's time to look at struts, transmission/transaxle mounts and suspension bushings..

drgrant

Well, if its a rear bearing you might get vibration, grinding noises, etc. Effects can vary. Fronts tend to be more obvious because if they're bad, they'll often make noise at low speeds while
turning, etc. At one time bclexus posted a pic of some kind of machine that could be used to spin each wheel independently while its attached to the car, but I have never seen a place that had one
of these devices... that could at least narrow it down to the wheel that's causing the problem.

Something like this....
Your profile says OH, if you drive this car in the winter frequently I strongly suggest getting another set of wheels and tires for it anyways, you should have kept your OEM
ones. Winter is hell on these cars because of the weight of the car and hitting a pothole "at speed" can easily bend the rim. After one winter of driving (using the GS as a DD) I had bent 3 out of 4 oem wheels, one severely! This past winter I lucked out and basically got to keep it off the road whenever the potholes were really, really bad. (late feb through march in MA is the worst for this).

The reason I ask about the road force printouts is "in spec" is debatable. IMHO anything under 10 is "ok". Some machines set the "warning" at like 15 or even higher but that's just stupid, by that point
they're going to be "obvious bad" although the type of vibration you're experiencing is so severe that if it was the wheel, the guy running the balancer wouldn't have been able to get them to
balance... makes me think its bearing, axle, something like that being messed up.

-Mike

jwtxcx

Can I understand it like: the bad brake rotors will vibrate and transfer the vibration to the wheels and feels like the wheel is out of balance?

jwtxcx

I live in Cincy. I either never saw this kind of balance machine . I will make another RF balance this week and ask for a printout. If not work, check the wheel bearing and driveline (u-joint,etc)

LeX2K

Sure but the rotor has to be in extremely bad shape, remember the larger the circumference the more an imbalance is amplified. But if a rotor is not sitting flat with the hub it will cause vibration, I'd say in your case an on vehicle wheel balance test is needed.

jwtxcx

Hey Mike!! Update: Today I went to Bob Sumerel and re-did a road force balance. I asked for a printout as below. They said my rear two tires have some problem. They cannot lower the road force. So they suggest me to replace these two.

When I check the wheel weights on each wheel, the front two have 3.5oz and 2.75oz, which they think no problem. The rear two only have 1oz and 0.75oz, which they think have problems on tires. They said no problems on wheels. Just tires.

How can one-month-old tires have problem? Maybe they are defective ones? And, I rotated my tires before. If the rear tires are the culprit (now they are at front), the seat vibration will transfer into a steering wheel shake. They should consider the current front tires (which used to be at the rear) having problem. You have any suggestions?

-David

drgrant

David, those numbers for the rear wheels are crazy.... those rims are either still bent, or the tires are way out of spec. I did have one pirelli that was out of spec and my tire guys gave me a new one and that helped considerably, but I find it hard to believe you had two
tires way out of spec. Anything over 15 after balancing = very bad. 10 or less is really where you want to be, and even at 10, you might still have minor issues.

One thing to keep in mind, I mentioned this before.... but those rim straightening places, etc, they help, but I think ultimately if you really bang up a wheel they will never be the way they were before. Basically in a GS rolling on 19s, if you get a bone-jarring pothole, there's
damage, guaranteed, not sure if you experienced any of those in the lifespan of these wheels, etc, but it really doesn't take much. This isn't like back when I had my Camry with 16" wheels, you hit a bone-jarrer or two over the winter and worst case you just get an alignment and magically all is well again.... not a chance here, lol.


-Mike