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1990 Ls400 Rear Struts--got Myself In A Mess


glenmore

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Being penny-wise and pound foolish I bought some OEM rear struts from ebay for my 1990 LS400.

The seller advertised them as for 1990-1993 for sure.

The Toyota boxes show part #48530-59097. The strut is marked "Toyota KYB D123 48530-50091".

Just to be sure, I called the local dealer to confirm that the part numbers were correct. He had difficulty finding any of these numbers but finally found that these were for 1998-2000 Lexus LS400.

I will bring them in to confirm, but is there any other way to figure out if these will fit my car?

Thanks,

glenmore

1990 LS400

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I just ran the part number through Park Place's search, and they came back as second gen shocks as well. See if you can compare them to what the local dealer has for a '90. Otherwise, make the seller take them back and refund your money.

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I just ran the part number through Park Place's search, and they came back as second gen shocks as well. See if you can compare them to what the local dealer has for a '90. Otherwise, make the seller take them back and refund your money.

blake918,

Thank you so much for checking. I reconfirmed with the dealer that this is a 1997+ strut. The dealer went to pull a 1990 strut from inventory and I went to my car and brought in mine. From 20 feet away I could tell they were not the same. The 1990 strut has a much larger spring seat, maybe 6" in diameter where the spring seat on the ones I had were maybe 4" in diameter.

The seller agreed to take them back and has given me a refund.

I've had a rotten run of luck. At the same time I also bought a pair of 1990 front struts from another ebay seller. He sent only one and it was obviously not an LS400 strut. Turns out it was a strut for a Lexus GS or Lexus SC. The LS400 strut has a bushing type lower attachment and this one had a "U" shaped piece of metal at the lower attachment point. Seller agreed to a refund but haven't gotten it yet.

glenmore

1990 LS400

1991 300CE

2000 C280

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We also bought air struts on ebay. Advertised as 1990-1994 LS. Seller (after purchase still claims it came from 94, which is our model). We got left front, left rear, right rear. Turns out left front is 1990-1992 (we think). Anyway, the left rear worked for us, and we bought a remanufactured front left. We were out $600, including labor, and still have the left front and right rear. Still beats $1300 quote from dealer for left front only. I'd be hesitant to sell the extras on e-bay, because I'd hate to sell a "pig in a poke". Arnott offered $25.00 each for the extras, which is weird considering they gave us $50 for the left front they knew to be broken. DH wants to keep the extras at that price.

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Going back to square one I reconsidered the discounted OEM KYBs at Park Place that are about $460. The KYB GR2s typically available at parts houses and ebay run $300-$400. Several posters have commented on the firmness of the GR2s versus OEM. I talked to a KYB tech and he said the OEM and GR2s are made on the same line but the valving was different on the OEM. He estimated that the GR2s were 10-15% firmer. Browsing again on ebay I came upon a local seller with the unbelievable price of $210 for all 4 so I drove down and picked some up. I have no idea if you can judge a shock just by compressing it and watching the rebound but the rears seem pretty similar to the wrong ones I had an some Bilsteins I put on my Mercedes. The fronts were a different matter. A little harder to compress but the rebound was at a snails pace. I hope this is not an indication of how harsh they are. I'm hoping that they need to be stiffer to handle the weight up front. We will see soon enough.

glenmore

1990 LS400

1991 300CE

2000 C280

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