This is just a PSA to those of you out there. I'm not a wrench, but I've really learned a lot about diagnosing cars and general front suspension geometry and parts after the experience I just had.

My car is a 98 ls400 and has all original suspension as far as I can tell. Replaced the strut bars last year, which helped a little bit. This winter the suspension deteriorated with the icy\bumpy roads and really beat the car up. I started getting a whole host of suspension problems, noises and little inconsistencies with how the car drove. Replacing the front ball joints fixed all of that. The car drives better than it ever has in my 2 years of ownership.

The difference is rather shocking to me. It fixed:

• Sensitivity to road camber. The car would pull in ways that felt weird and it felt like it would wander whenever the road was off-camber.
• Steering wheel getting jerked by bumps more than you would expect. Not just the wheel getting turned left or right, but the whole column moved.
• Body roll nearly eliminated in low\medium speed corners (city streets). It was to the point where I felt like I was falling out of my seat it was so bad, I had to hold onto the steering wheel to keep myself comfortably in my seat. Now I can't believe how flat the car corners; I had always thought this was how the LS drove; with a huge amount of body roll that caused me to fall out of my seat. This is not the case.
• Difficulty driving straight on the highway. Sometimes I felt like I was playing ping-pong in my lane as the car kept subtly changing direction on it's own. Completely gone now.
• Crashy\boomy ride that felt like I was beating up on the car; especially at medium\higher speeds with smaller bumps like bridge joints.
• Heavier steering. It has been getting lighter and lighter over the years. Replacing the ball joints tightened this up and raised the steering weight by +20% and significantly increased it's accuracy.
• Amplification of bumps at highway speed. I don't know for sure, but I feel like it was taking tiny bumps and basically acting as an amplifier for them and making them a much bigger deal than they really were. I'd be feeling my bodyfat jiggle while driving down a brand new perfectly smooth bit of highway.

The real kicker though - because I'm not a wrench, I was relying on auto shops to diagnose my car. I did my homework. I didn't just take the car to Midas, I took it to multiple popular private shops and got multiple 2nd opinions. Nobody could find anything wrong with the suspension. Every part passed both visual and physical inspection. NOBODY caught how bad these ball joints were. Everybody said the car drove perfectly fine - probably because even in a broken state, initially you get disillusioned by how smooth the spring rates and drivetrain are and you miss the underlying problems.

However, I persevered past the people suggesting I replace all 4 shocks and all the control arms. I trusted the general opinion of this forum to tackle suspension problems in a specific order: Strut bars, then ball joints, then UCA LCA bushings, then Engine\trans\rack\carrier mounts, then shocks, then swaybar links\bushings, then everything else.

So let this be a PSA to you fine folks. Just because it looks good and passes the tests does not mean the part is not completely ****ed. My ball joints visually looked perfectly fine - my shop who did the replacement said they would have put them back based on how they looked. Yet sitting here today after driving the car a few hours; they were completely and utterly broken and replacing them completely revolutionized the ride. For our cars, suspension parts don't often break, they just deteriorate to the point where they still function... but the Lexus softness and refinement is completely gone.

Total cost: $270 labor to install (labor rates where I live are $120\hr or higher), about $220 for Lexus OEM parts. I would have paid $800 or $1000 for how much this improved the cars ride.

I wish I had asked for the part so I could get a picture - but I just asked 2 days later after the job is done and their junk guy has already come by to take their used parts.

 

I have owned my 1999 LS400 for about 14 years and l over 230K miles.
I also have noticed that there's a LONG "grey area" in suspension... "White" being new or no problem part and "Black" completely shot part or obvious.
I may have replaced a bunch of suspension parts before they were completely toast, but there was an improvement, for sure.
I also noticed that many rubber part ( bushings) look good, but replacing them makes a huge difference. (e.g. steering rack insulators)