nebrou

As weird as it sounds but this is a lexus dealership and what I expect from dealership like lexus is these kind of problems shouldn't be there if they have the car in show room.

When I mentioned it during test drive, they sounded like they are surprised to see this problem and they told me many potential buyers did test drove car and didn't bring this to their attention LOL

Anyways, I decided to sway away from this dealership

John00

Good move

my guess is that theyve been told about it, but who knows.
Ive lost faith in the dealers these past few years, just keep getting worse and worse.
maybe the others test drove it and thats why it was still on the lot.
either way, they should have offered to check it out, then fix it, then get back with you instead of try to convince you its ok just because others didnt notice it. most people know about nothing when it comes to vehicles.

remember this, of any sample group, 50% of those in the group are below average intelligence.

whalley

The front-end fluttering at highway speeds just started on my 2012 GX after a tire rotation at 90,000 miles. Prior to the rotation there wasn't any vibration or fluttering so hopefully it's just a simple wheel/tire imbalance. I'm in the process of resolving it with the dealership now but wanted to thank everyone who contributed to this thread over the years. It's great to have a resource like this to get some ideas before visiting a shop.

Honestly, my experience with the GX has been one of the most expensive and negative automotive experiences in 30 years of driving, and this Lexus now has the dubious distinction of being the only vehicle to ever leave me stranded on the side of the road. In 10 months of owning it, I've had to drop the tank to replace the fuel tank sending unit (out of pocket), drop the engine to repair a leaking heat distribution plate (out of pocket), get it towed to the shop due to air injection pump failure (covered under recall), replace the airbag module (covered under recall), and now have this front-end fluttering to deal with. Here's to hoping it's a straight-forward fix!

Zraufs

I have 2018 GX 460 and since I bought it its been giving vibration and shaking of the steering wheel between 60 to 70 pmh speed. I have taken it back to the dealer several times and they have balanced forced balance the tires with no solution. Every day I feel the problem and it bugs me. I have also gone with the technician for a test drive and he did feel it and tried to again force balance the tires with improvement.. If anyone has ant suggestion, please respond to this post. Thanks.

Rufio

I had vibration but only during braking on my 13. I did a brake job and all has been well the last year.

bbqsoup

Maybe ask them to swap wheels/tires with another GX on the lot and test drive them. It could be the tires.

hadokenuh

It's definitely not the best thing to create a new "I have a problem" thread especially I haven't posted much. This will be long, please bear with me

I got my new 2019 GX Premium 2 months go and went thru a vibration issue. Here are the details. I'll have my questions at the end. Please advise.

The truck came with Bridgestone tires. During my test drive, I didn't drive more than 60mph so the issue didn't show up. Bad on my part. I should have.

Now the issue: if I drive 60 mph or more, the whole truck including steering wheel, floor board, seats would vibrate/shake. Defintely tires out of balance feeling. I could feel the bottom of my driver seat vibrates. The empty passenger seat (bottom + back rest) vibrate. The severity is not too bad, but it's there. Wife felt the same. And it pulled to the right.

So I brought it back and test drove with a tech. He acknowledged the pull, but he said the vibration I feel is normal for the GX. I pushed him to check for tires out of balance or defective, he said he'd see what he can do. When I picked it up, the work order said the alignment was off (passenger caster) and adjusted. That took care of the pull. For the vibration, he said the test drove another GX and found it behaved the same. He also checked the seat bolts and stuff - Of course all normal. I asked for a road force balance under warranty but they denied. It was $150 plus tax.

So knowing the Bridgetones were not the best and the dealership refused to do anything, I went to Discount Tire and bought a set of Michellin Defender LTXs as recommended by this forum. I got a great deal during their Labor Day sales. Also traded those Bridgetones in for $240. Now, right of the bat, the GX rode better with the Michellins. Much *less* vibration at 60. BUT at 65 and more, it still vibrated, about the same as with the Bridgetones. So I brought it back to them and had them rebalanced 2 extra times. Everytime they found it was "off" and "corrected" but vibration was still there. The 4th time I was back, they replaced 2 rear tires that were "bad". How they didn't know the first 3 times I had no idea.

Anyway, after 2 new tires, there was an improvement BUT vibration was still there. So I decided to bring it to another Discount Tire that I knew they knew their stuff from past experience. Well, they found all of them were "slightly" off (about 0.5oz to 1oz). I told them please go ahead and road force balance the tires since I had been dealing with this for too long. I picked the best guy to work on. He did a very good job and carefully road force balance them. It took them 1 hour and they didn't charge me any extra (even though I offered to pay). One of the best Discount Tire stores I have been too. Awesome service.

He found one of the tires had too high road force number. It read 47! Tried to match mounting but couldn't bring the # down. So he replaced it with yet another new one. And with the new one, the road force # was 16. The other 3 were also "in spec" but I didn't get to see the actual numbers. I assume they were less than 20.

So the ride is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than before. But on certain uneven/rough concrete surface, I can still feel vibration on my seat bottom. On other surface, it's very neligible.


So to grade the smoothness of my GX at 60-70mph thru each stage, out of 10:

1. With Bridgetones - 7.5/10
2. Right after new Michellins: 8/10
3. After 3 attempts to balance and 2 new tires at the 1st Discount Tire store: 8.5/10
4. After 1 new tire and road force balance at the 2nd store: 9.5/10


My expectation is 10/10 because I bought a new Lexus. It's a truck I know, but it shouldn't vibrate. So my questions are:

1. Is it reasonable to expect road force numbers to be less than 10 for all 4 tires? I've read 10 is the limit for luxury cars but I understand the GX is still a truck.
2. Is the feeling of the seat bottom vibrating on certain road surface expected on the GX due to BOF and/or solid rear axle? Anyone feeling the same sensation?
3. Is Michellin really going down hill in quality? 3 out of 4 had to be replace!
4. If anyone know a good tire store in the Houston area with road force balance expertise please let me know.

Thanks!

John00

I had a vibration that would go away once the tires got warm. At least thats how it seemed to me. Replaced with some crossclimates and no problems at all now.

hadokenuh

What tires do you have?

Please see my thread here: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gx-...l#post10631058

Thanks.

hadokenuh

Your problem sounds like "flat spotting". It's pretty common in cold climate with some Michellins.

JonGX

I would try a different dealer for a warranty claim. My 2014 has 52k, is on its 2nd set of Michelins, and there is not the slightest vibration even up to 85-90 where I would expect wind drag to have a noticeable effect. I don’t think it’s normal for the GX to have a vibration unless there is something specifically wrong with yours. Is it possible that you have a wheel slightly out of round?

ROSCOGX470

I’ve dealt with vibration issues a couple of times including this past month. I have Michelin energy LTX’s and they are very smooth but after fixing a vibration issue with my last set of tires by rebalancing this set had to be rebalanced again too. My wife’s Honda Crosstour and my sons 07 Lexus ES350 had the same deal, both needed rebalancing due to steering wheel shake at 65 mph. It’s very odd because I’ve never had a problem before where a tire goes out of balance. I live in Massachusetts so there are pot holes etc. The only difference I’ve noticed recently is all my tires have the stick on weights rather then the outside rim ones that are banged on(which I thought was better). Very aggravating issue to say the least.

hadokenuh

Thanks! What kind of Michelins are you running? Right now I am pretty happy with the ride on the Defender LTX. The only issue I have now is some minor seat vibration and movement on certain road surface going 65-70mph. And just to confirm, you don't experience any of that?

So the issue was pretty much the OEM Bridgetones or them being out of balance to start with. It would have been a long shot to push the dealership to replace the Bridgetones with Michelins. I had the wheels checked at Discount Tire by 2 different guys and their machine, they are all good. By the way, most DT stores around my area now have the latest Hunter Road force Elite balance machine with some fancy laser tech that can detect out of round issue pretty quickly and accurately.


Thank you for your response. What kind of vibrations on the GX did you experience if you don't mind me asking? Did you have the dealership re-balance them or a tire shop? Did they actually do road force balance? If they did, do you happen to have the road force # report of the tires?

As for the weight, I haven't seen them do the "banged on" weights on modern vehicles any more. Probably due to aesthetics. All I see are stick on weights.

ltsr

@hadokenuh I think you should have fought the dealer harder to fix the car to 10/10, or as @JonGX said try a different dealer. By changing the tires on your own, it has now become your issue since you have introduced something new. I dealt with something similar when my gx was new and I kept going back to the dealer until they got it right.

To try to be helpful in this situation, have you tried getting your alignment checked? The dealer took 3 tries to get my gx right. This was all under 5,000 miles.

hadokenuh

Hey thanks! Maybe I should have

My GX pulled to the right and the checked the alignment. It was the passenger caster that was off so they corrected it. The truck drives straight now. Maybe very slightly pulls to the left, but I need to drive more to see. At least right now, I don't need to constantly adjust the steering wheel.

What was the problem with your alignment? Could you please share your story with us? Thanks again.