zminister

Recently my 2005 GX 470 has a really 'floaty" ride in the front. I have the suspension set on "sport" and it is still bouncing a lot. I took it to my dealer recently and they said there was nothing wrong but it's riding lousy. Any ideas?

firemanbbo

Mine was doing the same, with the addition of wheel bounce on the passenger side. I replaced both front shocks ($1000 at the dealer) and did the CV boots on both sides as well. My 2003 GX470 with 110k on it rides like new again.

redrocks

Wow! $1000!! These are air shocks, right?

zminister

Thanks for the advice. My dealer drove it recently and said there is "nothing wrong" but my wife and I will tell you otherwise.

techtalk

zminister,

Not to stereotype here but my personal experience with dealerships are always quite..bad, for lack of a better descriptive word. I tagged along with my brother-in-law to our local dealership when he was going to replace the shocks on his GX470 and the dealership insisted that he had to replace the springs and tires as well because "installing new shocks necessitates new tires" The "skilled" technician's lack of knowledge is certainly alarming..

With that said, I would advise taking your GX to an independent Lexus mechanic. The GX shocks are ridiculously expensive- at $230 each for OEM replacements from lexuspartsnow.com or $294 from the dealership- so save as much money on the repairs as you can by taking it to an independent garage. Labour charges should be about $300-400 for the shock replacement job.

Good luck with the shock job!