mcfly

I see from the maintenance schedule that the axle shaft flange bolts are supposed to be re-torqued every 15000 miles. Anyone know what the torque spec is?

Bichon

Your TIS subscription at http://techinfo.lexus.com ran out already?

About the flange bolts, I saw that too. I'm not normally big on conspiracy theories, but I can't help but wonder whether that item was added to the maintenance schedule to get more people to bring their cars to the dealer rather than bringing it to the neighborhood quick lube or doing it themselves. On other cars I've owned, this is the type of item that would appear on a 60,000 mile service, not every 5,000.

Anyway, I'm not sure what bolts they are talking about. Hopefully someone with a digital camera (or with a diagram from techinfo) will enlighten us.

mcfly

It's 214ft/lbs. And they're just talking about the, well, axle flange bolt. Take a wheel off... it's the big sucker in the middle thats been staked.

I'd agree... that VERY weird to see on a service schedule, even at 15k mile intervals (the footnote for that at 5000 mile intervals indicates it's only necessary if you live in the desert basically )

The only time I've had to mess with axle shaft bolts before was on my 2000 S2000, on which they tended to loosen up and you'd get a really annoying thunk when accelerating from a stop.

Bichon

Okay, the big one in the middle. I know what you're talking about now.

My torque wrench doesn't go up to 214ft/pounds, so unless I start reading about problems here, or start hearing noises like the ones you had on your Honda, I'm not going to bother doing this on routine 5k oil changes.

Thanks for posting the info!

mcfly

Yeah, I don't have a torque wrench that big either.

On another note, I also discovered that the there's a special SST (Lexus code for "one of our tools") listed for removal of the oil filter. I can't tell from the diagram whether or not it's actually "special" or not, but just so you know when you go to change the oil for the first time. Let us know if you find something at the local autozone that does the trick.

SportyStar

You bring up some good questions. Good info to know down the road, I like to do my own maintenance too. When you mentioned "axle shaft flange bolts", it reminded me of those 10x1.5x50 allen head bolts common on CV axles of Toyota Camrys. But since our ISs are RWD, I figure it might be referring to the rear axles ... I see you found the update and mean the axle nut rather than bolts. Sure is interesting that Lexus actually has a service schedule for those axle nuts. Hmm...

As for the oil filter, I too was trying to figure out whether that "special tool" is in fact special, or if it's just one of those cap-type oil filter wrenches. I spoke with a parts guy at the Lexus dealer, who said "no, it's not special, just get it at any auto parts store". I'm looking at the diagram on the installation instructions that came with the filter (I picked up a few filters from the dealer). The tool does look like a regular cap-style filter wrench, but I guess we won't know until someone actually does the job. I don't plan on changing my oil and filter anytime soon, but I'll post an update once I do (probably won't be for another couple months).

mcfly

Well, not quite. There are ZERO references to "axle flange bolts" in the technical docs, and since there aren't any other bolts in that vicinity, I can't imagine they mean something other than the axle nut. But I could be wrong, so maybe someone in the vicinity of a Lexus dealer can ask exactly what they're talking about (and my guess is that it never gets done during regular servicing anyway).

SportyStar

I came across a similar discussion in the maintenance forum for an RX330, although noone really came up with a definite answer there, either. Here's the link if you'd like to check it out:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...t+flange+bolts

Perhaps I'll ask the parts/service techs at Lexus. Will keep you posted.

Bichon

Please do. Try to find out whether heffergm is correct about it being the axle nut, as well as whether this is really something that needs attention at every oil change.

rinthiran

That's a very high torque spec that I would be surprised if it came loose that early. I've never had/heard of problems with loose axle flange bolt. At 214fl/lbs, you're probably going to need a 0-300lb/ft drive-dial torque wrench with an additional 3 foot breaker-bar.

Interesting to think of something like that comming loose. I doubt I would check until 50k miles or so.

mcfly

The 214ft/lbs is for the axle shaft bolt. As of yet, no one can confirm that's exactly what they're talking about in the manual when referring to the axle shaft flange bolts.