UDel

I agree, it makes me nervous driving my car and hearing a creaking rattling sound when driving over bumps and going at slow speeds because of this possible problem. I have had the car looked at twice and they did not find what was the cause of the noise although I did not ask them to really check the ball joints. It seems some people have bad ball joints but they are not apparent until you actually take them off and inspect them which makes it extremely difficult to diagnose. As far as Lexus putting out a TSB on this I think they will not bother, they are very poor at addressing design defects and issues especially when you run out of the warranty. Look how many very common design defects and issues affect the GS from all the threads like door lock actuator failures, moisture in the headlights, starter problems/failures, squeaks/rattles, low/rough idle, and now the lower ball joints are another common issue that is just being ignored and not addressed making customers pay the expensive costs of repair. I think Lexus does not want to issue any TSBs or make it known that they will repair the defects because it might hurt their reputation and high quality ratings even though alot of Lexus owner are angry about all these expensive to fix issues and possibly dangerous issues that were never addressed. I expect more from a company like Lexus.

As for the balljoint issue I think it is so stupid that they designed the GS so that if this one piece fails it will destroy important expensive suspension pieces from the weight of the car falling on it and it will likely cause a serious accident. If you are going design something like that at least have the common sense to build the ball joint strong enough to last the life of the car.

I have this issue with timing belts too where with many engines if the timing belt fails the engine will be destroyed with pistons and other pieces colliding with each other but other engines like non-interference engines are safe if the timing belt fails. After all these years of knowing this problem why would you still keep designing and making engines that will be destroyed if the timing belt breaks? If you are going to keep designing engines this way because of simplicity or costs then at least make a timing belt that is strong enough to last the life of the car instead it needing to be replaced 90K miles and possibly failing before it is changed leading to destruction of the engine because it was not designed with enough strength.

JeffTsai

iTrader: (1)

Kinda off topic, but just replying to what you said about the timing belt and interference engines. Most modern high performance/ultra high performance engines are very high compression compared to what they were back in the day. The piston goes much further up the cylinder to extract more power. I'm sure as engines get more and more advanced and also more powerful they will all become interference setups. The good news is that Toyota is using timing chains rather than belts on the new engines. Although it won't last the life of the car, it's a heck of a lot longer than a timing belt.

samster

ball joints will go on anycar in nyc with the potholes we have here lols and the GS is a heavy car but its just a good thing for people to realize if they here any weird noise in the suspension tey should go check it out or get it checked out even mechanics can over look a ball joint sometimes if it doesnt have much play and is left on the spindle. Maintaince on any vehical shouldn't be rated by mileage but how you drive -=) if u have lead feet change ur oil buy 1500k or 3000k if ur runnin mobile one or somthing etc the guildance on mileage is just approx

corkycal

iTrader: (8)

i'm 100% sure there was a TSB for ball joint failure on first generation GS'. this was never addressed with 2nd gen GS'.

i guess lexus didn't learn from their first mistake

this is what i found

http://www.lexusforum.com/recalls-an...153/Recall.htm

1993 Lexus Gs300
NHTSA Campaign #: 95V072000
Manufacturer Campaign #:
Make: Lexus
Model: Gs300
Year: 1993
Component: Suspension:front:control arm:lower ball joint
Manufacturers Involved: Toyota motor co., ltd.
Begin Date Of Manufacturing: 09/01/1992
End Date Of Manufacturing: 05/01/1994
Recall Type: V
Potential Number Of Units Affected: 27604
Date Owner Notified By Manufacturer: 04/28/1995
Recall Initiator: Mfr
Manufacturer Responsible For Recall: Toyota motor north america, inc.
Date Report Received By ODI: 04/03/1995
Date Added To File: 04/14/1995
Regulation Part #:
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard #:
Defect Summary: The spherical portions of certain lower ball joints had finished surfaces that were not smooth causing friction with the surface of the ball joint cap.
Consequence Summary: This condition can lead to separation of the balljoint increasing the potential for a vehicle accident.
Corrective Action: Dealers will replace the lower ball joints on the affected vehicles.



more reading:

for 2nd gen they only offered a TSB for checking for excessive play.

here is the link:

http://techdoc.lexus-europe.com/tsb_...asp?fileID=639