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Gs400 Ball Joints


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I just took my 2000 GS400 in for its annual inspection. It has 77,000 miles and is in excellent shape. The dealer called and said I needed to replace the front ball joints. He said this was common on GS and LS models at around 75,000 miles. He even showed me the old ball joints and pulled up on down on it to demonstrate the play.

Is this normal or have I have been had?

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I just took my 2000 GS400 in for its annual inspection. It has 67,000 miles and is in excellent shape. The dealer called and said I needed to replace the front ball joints. He said this was common on GS and LS models at around 75,000 miles. He even showed me the old ball joints and pulled up on down on it to demonstrate the play.

Is this normal or have I have been had?

Some play is allowed within manufacturers limits, was there any signs of having bad ball joints before you took the car in? I've got 72k on my gs300, thats 30k of harsh NY street driving this year and my ball joints are still fine. I know the control arms on these cars cost a bundle, and I believe you have to purchase a whole new arm for the repair so hopefully it was really a necessary repair. The only thing that needed to be replaced was my control arm bushings which were fairly worn. I ordered some daizen bushings, got them about 6 months later but have not had the time to put them on as of yet.

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time to get yours done. i would trust the dealer on this one! they can break and your whole wheel can come off! really scary if your on the hwy! gettem done! well worth the money for the piece of mind!

Kevs98gs4 is right and the dealer is right for once or should I say the sealer. You won't believe the difference changing the ball joints is going to make. A lot of people change them at 90k. I'm at 94k and I'm going to change mine as soon as I get a chance.

The GS and LS have this common problem of the ball joints going bad and breaking at around 90k. Trust me, you don't have to be the type that tracks your car or even drives hard most of the time. I've heard of two people that this has happened to and in both cases it happened right before they were about to get on the highway. You don't want your ball joint to break while you're on the highway at highway speeds.

Get them changed man.

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  • 1 month later...
I just took my 2000 GS400 in for its annual inspection. It has 77,000 miles and is in excellent shape. The dealer called and said I needed to replace the front ball joints. He said this was common on GS and LS models at around 75,000 miles. He even showed me the old ball joints and pulled up on down on it to demonstrate the play.

Is this normal or have I have been had?

If you haven't already listen to the dealer and get them changed out. My ball joints on my 2000 GS300 did fail. I was lucky that I was only going about 5MPH into a car wash at the time. The entire suspension collapses when this happens. My wheel was sticking out almost 90 degrees. Then you have to think about how they are going to get your car on a tow truck. It took an hour and a half for the tow truck driver and I to get it on the flatbed because the front was so low to the ground and was scraping as it went up the ramp. We ended up using 2 floor jacks to keep the front end up as we took it off the truck. Still there was damage to the front bumper cover and the fender. thank goodness for insurance!! If this had happened on the freeway I could have easily been killed.

I've been doing some research on this and have concluded that the reason they are so picky about ball joints especially lower ones is because they know there is a flaw in the design. GS300's where recalled in 1997 for the lower front ball goint failing due to poor lubrication. And if you listen to me and look around the web you will find that the design is still defective.

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I just took my 2000 GS400 in for its annual inspection. It has 77,000 miles and is in excellent shape. The dealer called and said I needed to replace the front ball joints. He said this was common on GS and LS models at around 75,000 miles. He even showed me the old ball joints and pulled up on down on it to demonstrate the play.

Is this normal or have I have been had?

i have a 2000 gs3 i didnt have to replace my ball joints until 119k

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  • 2 weeks later...

Whoa...

My wife was backing out of our driveway and the driver's side lower just broke in half. I'm glad she's not dead and I can't believe Lexus would continue with this design.

We have just clocked 192K on our 1998 GS-300...

BTW -- the car was making a "creaking" sound while driving at low speeds especially while turning and breaking... Owners beware!!! This is the sign of trouble!

The car was towed and new components installed -- about $1K...(because the ABS sensor broke during the failure) Now the other side is creaking and grinding -- here goes another trip to the shop.

Good Luck -- watch your ball joints!!!

--Maria 20

California

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Whoa...

My wife was backing out of our driveway and the driver's side lower just broke in half. I'm glad she's not dead and I can't believe Lexus would continue with this design.

We have just clocked 192K on our 1998 GS-300...

BTW -- the car was making a "creaking" sound while driving at low speeds especially while turning and breaking... Owners beware!!! This is the sign of trouble!

The car was towed and new components installed -- about $1K...(because the ABS sensor broke during the failure) Now the other side is creaking and grinding -- here goes another trip to the shop.

Good Luck -- watch your ball joints!!!

--Maria 20

California

Mine broke on me at 78,000 last wednesday. It was the front passenger side. Good thing i was coming out of a parking garage and was coming out slowly. The wheel held my front end up from hitting the floor. Ordered the parts from sewell, came in today going to get it done on saturday.

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Can't believe this crap is happening to a Lexus. Chrysler had this exact same thing on the mid to late 90's Cirrus, Dodge Stratus & Plymouth What-ever-it-was-called. ( But at least Chrysler did a recall) A friend of mine had a Plymouth, and had both sides seperate on his wife, on 2 different occasions. At least both itmes she was going about 25 mph, and only a couple blocks from home. Turns out the previous owner never took it in for the recall, but the dealer stepped up and gave my friend a heck of a discount on the new parts, practically gave them to him. Only time I ever saw a Chrysler dealer even TRY to be up front about an issue.

So are the replacements better than the ones they came with? Or do we need to worry about it again in another 90k miles?

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My Wife's car broke the lower right side yesterday morning. The worst part was getting the part. None of the parts houses stock them so it was off to Lexus to pay $107 for a part that you can get online for $76. I guess someone has to pay for the granite counter tops at their parts department. Other than that, I fixed the car right there in the street in less than 20 min. Thank God it broke two houses down from ours. I was also able to repair the anti-lock sensor. That one was close as the wire broke far enough out of the sensor to repair it. I can't complain as my other car is a Volvo. This Lexus is twice the car and it has 170,000 on the clock. Do any of you know if any of the Toyota models interchange front end parts with the GS300?

lexus002.jpg

lexus003.jpg

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i only trust one guy hes in plainfield he honest good deals and prices real nice he gets me parts or fix with great deals cheaper then dealers and gets the job done right need any help email me at mike_mike926@yahoo.com

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey folks,

How can you tell if you're ball joints are good or bad without taking it to Lexus? I've taken my car in to Lexus many times and they said nothing about this. I have 107K miles on my 1998 gs400 and if I hadn't read this thread here, I would not have even known about this potential problem. How can I tell if the ball joints on my GS400 are good or bad without taking it to Lexus?

Thanks

Konstantin

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  • 8 months later...

My 1996 GS 300 Sport had to have new front ball joints at around 82,000 miles. I ordered them through a UK Lexus dealer and got 10% Gold discount, then my Dad and I fitted them ourselves. This was in April 2005.

Even after changing them and fitting new stock Spax Sport front springs a couple of years later, both the original ones snapped, it still creaked like it did before all this work was done. I never had any problems though for the further three years and five months and 15,000 miles I owned the car.

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  • 2 years later...

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