vinniesabo

Update...

It was the lower control arms, part numbers 48620-50070 and 48640-50070. I had Woodfield Lexus in Schaumburg IL inspect it and they told me the tires were cupped and that both front lower control arms needed to be replaced due to excessive play. Price was listed at $450 each but I shopped around and they did price match the parts from a dealer in the area, Arlington Lexus. Control arms had to be ordered separately even though they were already at the dealer, I believe because the discount/price-match can not be applied when buying directly at the dealer as opposed to online. Total for the two control arms after price-match - $754.84. Obviously, because I did not address the issue immediately, the tires were ruined. (Thankfully, I had about 30k miles on them already). So I needed a set of new tires ($1000), and a wheel alignment. ($159 +tax). The inspection cost was deducted from the total price of the repairs and the tires. $2422.42 was the total for 4 new tires (Continental Extreme Contact DWS06 Plus BSW), alignment, installation ($195 + tax) and replacement of the lower control arms. I just hope that the wheel hub I installed (TRQ from PartsGeek) will last at least a few years. We'll never know if it actually needed replacing unless (knock on wood) the TRQ goes bad and I have to put the old one back in. Imo, have Lexus do an inspection before diving into replacing parts. I wish I had, that wheel hub was a nightmare to take out. And because the noise persisted after replacing it, I took it off again to check for mistakes.
Here is the link to the hub assemblies, but I cannot comment on their reliability yet as I have only driven the vehicle about 2k miles since replacing the driver's side hub.
​​​​​​https://www.partsgeek.com/catalog/20...html?brand=trq

So make sure that it is in fact the wheel hub/s that need replacing. And good luck to anyone who needs to replace them. I would rather work overtime for a week before I attempt that again.