nicholasg

So, its been a while since I posted in here regarding this thread. 9000 miles after getting my alignment done, and having the stealership check my suspension the inner tire wear is still happening (on my new tires) and further more, I am suffering from tire cupping on both of my front two tires.

My poor IS350 sounds like a helicopter when driving down the road.

I took it to 3 different alignment places every 3000 miles, all of them reputable, and they all agree that the suspension is out of spec and is to blame for the tire cupping and wear patterns.

I have gotten no where with Lexus, and at this point will be visiting the dealer and demanding they replace all of suspension components as these parts have either been installed incorrectly, are defective, or the car itself is a lemon. I also will be requesting they replace my two front tires as they are obviously worthless now due to the tire cupping and inner tire wear.

If Lexus is unwilling to comply, my next step would be to file litigation against them and seek damages. There is no reason why my 2008 IS350 with only 25k miles on it should have burned through nearly 2 sets of tires, and my newest set should not be suffering from cupping. I have carefully documented the wear, alignment specs, and received testimonies from various third parties substantiating that there is indeed an issue with this car, the suspension, the installation, or something of this nature. It needs to be rectified, as per the lemon law they have 3 strikes. Then they're out.

josephlee

anyone knows if this is a problem with the AWD as well?

BHMTitan

Hoping to prevent the normal front tire wear, during the 5000 mile service performed yesterday, I got them to check alignment. Here is the before and after specs. The front is right at the suggested 1mm (0.04"). We'll see how the wear goes from this point forward. The "before" toe was out due to my wife hitting a curb 2 days before hand, so an alignment was definitely needed.

Fizzboy7

I'm having a similar problem with all my tires wearing on the insides. I'm at 14k miles and have had my F-springs on for 2k miles. I just got an alignment today and I am wondering if I should have told the clerk my car has special springs on it. I see a few pages above there was an option for "sport suspension" in the data base. I am looking on my invoice printout from the tire shop and it just says, "2WD standard suspension." Is there a difference? This is Tire Pros we are talking about, a pretty large tire chain store. Do I need to go back and have them redo it to "sport suspension" specs? Do cars like mine with the F-springs and stock 18" wheels even qualify for the sport catagory spec?

SC3coupe

iTrader: (4)

My opinion only, -1.X camber is not a big deal, making sure you stay away from having any toe out would be a good idea, because toe out will shave the inside of your tires in no time, a little of bit toe in would be ideal. I think of toe in as helping it wear the outside of the tires. The Lexus dealership always try to set at 0 toe.. an experienced sports car alignment shop you can work with you and make recommendations, obviously the goal of everyone reading here is not to kill their tires and not have to do with the best turn in response.

The 2IS is heavy and don't get thrown around hard enough, this just makes the inner tire wear more pronounced.

ES3

Might this be worth attempting a TSIB? At least for free adjusted alignment, if customer complains about uneven tire wear?

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

Warranty covers alignment for the first 12 months, then that's it.


But unless you find a dealer competent enough to understand the real issue and be willing to align it differently from what the 'factory' says it should be getting an alignment done by the dealer won't really help since it's the factory alignment that causes the problem.

ES3

My dealer actually says they can tweak the toe to prevent abnormal wear. Strangely, if they're admitting to the abnormal wear, I feel Lexus should at the very least put out the disclaimer up front. Isn't abnormal tire wear why Nissan had a recall on their Z once upon a time?

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

I suspect you're lucky to find a good dealer, and that they do not speak for Lexus (who continues to ship cars from the factory this way, and hasn't changed the factory alignment specs to fix what they refuse to admit is a "problem")

Sunspyre

My dealer warrantied a camber kit as well as putting on the new tires for free, but I had to pay for the tires since they were a wearable item.
I'll try to post my service sheet if I can scan it.

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

That'd be real interesting to see since Lexus doesn't sell a camber kit for the 2IS and the problem isn't caused by camber anyway (it's caused by toe)

Sunspyre

2008 IS250 RWD Manual
23K Miles at time of service
Have F-sport 19"s

IS-SV

Right camber bracket:
1 48075-30040 BRACKET SUB-ASSY

What's that?

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

Ah, I suspect the dealer did this mod described here on a GS-

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...lexus-rep.html


It's not a "camber kit" which would imply the camber is now adjustable though... it just "sets" it differently than the stock part.

The poster didn't have the same problem as most in the thread are discussing though... in his case it wasn't tire wear, his car wasn't driving straight.

Sunspyre

That was my bad on the terminology, but I did have abnormal tire wear on the insides of the tires. At 23k miles, the tires were down to the white and that was their fix for the problem. They installed the new set of front tires that I bought off the internet and we'll see if that fixes the problem.