aldolini

Hi All,

Hopefully someone can tell me something else besides what the 3 Lexus dealerships weren't able to. I have a 2021 IS350 Dynamic Sport package which has the AVS. I hit a massive pothole going about 40 at night on the driver front side. (LolL....don't judge, I didn't have time to react) The car hasn't driven the same since. The car does not ride smooth at all regardless what drive setting I have it on. I always felt for the past 2 years that having the suspension set to Sport (in custom mode) was the smoothest ride ever. Stiff but really smoth.

Simptoms:
Excessive vibration in cabin
Car veers slightly to the right when I let go of the wheel and it's not because of road curvature. It has never pulled to the right for two years.
every now and then I hear a noise from the front if I roll over speedbumps but it does not do it every time.
creaking pullng in and out of driveways on an angle
body roll left when on highway is going to the right.

Steps I've taken after the pothole:
Had the rims on the drivers side sent to the shop for any rim damage or bend. all ok.
Replaced all four tires since the stock Bridgestone S001L were wearing out too fast to begin with.
Balanced and alignment at Lexus dealership. Had them do a "complete so they say" suspension check and they found no issues. Took it to two other dealerships and same result. I know pothole damage isn't covered by warranty but was thinking if they tell me what it might be I would support a local shop instead.
Drove for about a week and had the alignment re-checked by a local alignment shop and it was still good according to them.
2 weeks later the vibration was driving me crazy and dealership was useless since they don't "feel" anything so I took the car to a mechanic that specializes in Japanese cars. They too said the suspension looks fine. However, they put the car on alignment machine and the toe on both front wheels was so bad that they had to visually correct before they can get the machine to read it. By the time they adjusted enough to do the alignment correctly, it showed drivers side still off by 0.5 and the passenger side 0.4.
Luckily the tires are Michelin and the 60 no hassle really works. I have 2 new tires coming next week.
All four tires have feathering but luckily the back ones are not too bad and will probably even out if I can fix the issue in time. The front left also now has a slight flat spot.
This shop said I could be feeling the vibrations because of the horrible alignemnt, bad wear on the tires OR there's a potential suspension issue which made the car go out of alignment if the dealership did it correctly.

I had them check everything that I could list out about suspension components and everything seems fine.

the car only has 13K miles and I would hate to get rid of it but I cannot drive it with this vibration. Spending more than 10 minutes in the car makes my blood boil.

WHAT DO I DO/REPLACE?

Could it be the front left strut? Doesn't feel like I lost compression if I bounce the front end. The car feels unsafe all around.

Thanks in advance!

ScytheDC

Diagnosing over the internet is not going to be very helpful for you. You need to take your car to a shop and have a mechanic go for a ride with you so they can feel what’s going on and go from there. Surly someone out there wants to get paid to do
some work

aldolini

I'm still working with a shop. Was trying to get some feedback. The latest from them is to get the new tires on, break them in for a week and go from there. The bigger problem is no one seems to feel the vibration that i do. I've been on several drives with mechanics.

ScytheDC

Do you let them drive? They might not feel anything from the passenger seat

aldolini

Yes. They drove it with and without me in the car. I even felt it while i was in the passenger seat and was told "the f sport suspension is super tight and this is expected" which is complete BS. I've had the car over 2 years and it has never vibrated like this. It almost feels as if the wheels are just not firmly planted while driving. I might have to either attach a camera or have someone drive beside me to see if we can film any tire bounce.

Would a damaged strut take the car out of alignment within weeks? I dont mind buying a new strut assembly for the front left but trying my best to make sure since the ones with AVS are pricey and so is install. I don't see any leak either. Is it possible i could have damaged the AVS actuator that sits on top of the mount? The foreman kept telling me theres only 3 damping settings but that makea no sense. AVS while in sport+ mode actually adjusts in real time while driving.

nitroracer

Have you gotten the new tires Road Force Balanced? I doubt Lexus did that. My local Lexus tells me they have the machine, but everytime I've asked for the service, they tell me it's broken...

echoVAL

I did a stupid thing and went canyon running and went a little too hard. Took a corner too fast and I was half dirt half pavement but it dipped into the dirt so the pavement knocked my front passenger control arm. Big repair but even after alignment and replacing my front right suspension I was getting a lot of vibration still... Turns out that my body shop diagnosed that the subframe got shifted. All they had to do was shift it back and it was driving as good as new. Hope this helps!