Tires & Suspension Vibration

[dogboy]

I recently had new tires put on my LS 400. Driving the car with the new tires was like riding a bull. I have read a lot of post on this site that have said that these cars are very sensitive to tire balance and that most of the suspension vibration is from the tires not being balanced properly. I can say that from my experience with these new tires this is true. I took the car back to the tire shop and explained what the problem was. The technician put the tire (that I felt had the problem) on the balancing machine and found that the tire had what he called a hop in it. He rotated the tire 160 degrees on the rim and tried to balance the tire once more. And it still had the hop. So he replaced the tire with a new one. The technician said that this would take care of my problem and sent me on my way. Although the ride of the car is dramatically improved the ride of the car was not as smooth as before I put the new tires on. So when I went back and asked if they would rebalance the rest of the wheels the technician gave me a bunch of attitude. Grudgingly the technician went out and pulled the other 3 wheels and rebalanced them. To his surprise he had to replace another tire. The point of me sharing this is: I do not care what kind of car you have 2 bad tires will make any car ride like a bull, but with this type of car (LS400) the vibration is magnified significantly. So if you ever have suspension vibration the first and cheapest place to try to fix is the tires. And if I had not had access to the information on this site I probably would have spent a lot of money trying to fix this problem. Thank you Lexus Owners Club!

[tansupplyman]

THANK you for your input---tires are extremely important on the LS400--the 'unsprung' mass is extremely low; this is great engineering{low mass struts,A arms, etc.}---really the ratio of sprung:unsprung mass causes all this importance--

In a 1956 Cadillac it wouldn't matter since the weight was very high.

Anyway, think we would all want to know what tires were NOT 'round'. This all means: WATCH while the guys are spinning your tires, check 'out-of-round' while spinning.

Balance on these 'things' is very important--to the 1/4 of an ounce I would think--and always DYNAMIC balance---stick-on weights if you have chrome wheels[so they won't fly off.

Seems like we should rebalance tires every 10,000 miles regardless of brand.

And rotate at least every 5,000 mi---I like to 'X' rotate to eliminate 'feathering'[haven't found anyother way to eliminate it; this is without using the spare--period.

[93LSOwner]

Dogboy,

I have noticed that you have another topic started about "Bad Strut" when I frist purchased my 1993 LS400 last month. I also started two different topics about vibration and struts. So, I guess these things are not very rare and probably come together at once, maybe.

[LWR]

Absolutely true.I just installed a set of the new Pirelli P7's in 225/60x16 on my wife's 97 LS400.Very impressed with them even after the excellent Continentals.The P7's are quieter and bite much harder.

[SW03ES]

Yes, the LS magnifies any kind of wheel vibration 10 fold...

[XESPUM]

I have a 2001 LS430 with 17" chrome tires. I've had trouble with the ride since I got the car -- about 100 miles into it, I took it back to get the tires balanced (I had a LS400 prior to this, so I knew what to expect). I've done balancing 4 or 5 times and had it aligned.

Recently I just got new tires on it (Michelin MXV4+)

After installing the tires, the tech (at Costco) told me that 3 of the wheels were out of round, making it impossible to balance the tires.

I took it back to Lexus and they checked it. Sure enough, 3 bad wheels. The dealer said that this can happen early in the model run on chrome wheels.

They replaced the 3 wheels under warranty and the car now runs like I would expect a Lexus to run.

Joe

[SW03ES]

Wow, all 3? At least its all fixed...

[XESPUM]

yes 3 of them. I also made them check the full size spare (they had forgotten)

I was pleasantly suprised that they didn't give me any trouble over it, and replaced them with a "sorry it took so long".

I wonder if it has anythign to do with the fact that this is the second of 3 Lexus' I've bought there? :)