amcdonal86

I would bet that the sway bar bushes are not the problem, and to lube them took about 30 seconds a side. They got neurosurgeon rates from you and I'd still report them to the BBB. Yes that was the name, Lindsay had the showroom in one location and the shop down the street a half mile or so. I guess they do not want the used Lexus types mixing with the LS460 buyers... Anyway, my suspension noise was solved by installing new strut bars, the horizontal pieces that connect the frame to the front wheel spindle and a pair of arnott industries upper control arms. The UCA's were cluncking like mad over speed bumps when I got the car, but I knew how to fix the prob., the strut bar noise only happened once in a while and took me some time to feel it was worth taking care of. The car is quiet now and the new sway bar bushes I bought before figuring out the strut bar was the noise I was hearing, are still sitting un-used in a garage drawer. I was looking at lexls.com tutorials for removing the "Rear axle carrier arm bushings". The first step is pretty much to remove the strut rod. Is this the same for my '97? http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/suspension/rcabushings.html Also, how simple is it to remove the front strut rods? I appreciate your help! And what about cost? I looked up bushings for the strut rods and I can only seem to find them for the front. Even aftermarket "AST" brand bushings are $64 each!!! New strut rods are only about $90 each--should I just go ahead and get new strut rods?

Well, I finally got the car up on ramps. It appear that they DID lube the sway bar bushings as they had said. Unfortunately, I think I will still have to replace them. That way I can eliminate this as a cause of the noise.

Well, I checked the BP here. They do use ethanol in the gasoline. I drove around one night and checked each gasoline station I passed. All of the roughly 10-15 gas stations I checked have E10 and not 100% gasoline.

I was in the Alexandria, VA area last summer and their Lexus Dealer tried to rip me off for $3,900 to fix my AC when it was only an o-ring behind the battery. Looks like I'll have to stay away from Lindsay Lexus as well.

There is a YouTube video found here that shows EXACTLY how to fix the problem.

Well, what did you find?

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear--the memory seat is working again.

Next week when I get back to school, I'm going to jack up the car and change the sway bar bushings myself. If I find no evidence of them having been lubed, I'm going to call Pohanka Lexus and demand a refund. If they refuse, I will contact the Better Business Bureau and see what happens.

Oh, and they tried to tell me that the timing belt was cracked and is in danger of being destroyed, which is nonsense since it was changed 30k miles ago. AND they tried to tell me that my car desperately needed a 90k service. But I called another Lexus dealership today that verified that it had already been done on my car!

Haha, thanks. I'm just trying to get familiar with the car, and as you said, things should settle down soon. :) I'm just excited that my car already had the 90k service!

I think I interrupted it by freaking out and removing the key from the ignition.

Well, I did a little fiddling with the electrical connectors under the seat, and suddenly it is working again. Disconnecting the battery alone did not do the trick. Oddly, now my HVAC is having some funky issues. For a couple times after I disconnected the battery, I would turn the car on and there would be grinding/movement noises somewhere in the dash, and then the front defogger light would flash amber repeatedly. After a couple more startups, it seems to work like normal. What on earth could cause this!? It scared me a little bit. Made me think I had bought a German car!

Help! I'm having a problem with my memory seats ever since I got the car back from the scam dealership Pohanka Lexus of Chantilly. The mirrors memory works, but the seat's memory does not. The seat still does move when I adjust it using the power controls, but it will not remember the position! Could something have become disconnected (or sabotaged)? I'm going to try disconnecting the battery for a little bit and then seeing if it works again. Any ideas? It was working as early as 2 days ago!

Sounds like it's time for an Italian tuneup!

bAHHHHH!!! I am enraged right now. I got hosed big time. BEWARE of Pohanka Lexus of Chantilly. Their service department is a scam!!! They ended up only lubing the swaybar bushings without my authorization. They charged me $226, and acted like I should've been happy that they saved me money. I would NOT have paid $226 to have them lube the bushings, but I would've paid $260 to replace them. I am never going back there. It is a scam.

EDIT--wrong thread....

I spoke with a nice young woman from Lexus of Wilmington (Delaware) where the car had been serviced. She looked up the maintenance records and confirmed that the 90k mile service was indeed done. This is great news!!!! She told me that the timing belt won't need to be done for another 30-40k more miles.

ROFL. The service advisor just read me the "results" of their "diagnosis". Of course, there is a long laundry list of problems related to the suspension. Apparently the rear struts are blown, the front ball joints are leaking, etc., etc. I asked them just to replace the sway bar bushings. Hopefully they will do that instead of scamming me. Probably won't be coming back to this dealership again. They could be right about those problems, but I certainly don't notice any "clanking" during braking and I have a good ear.

Blast! I'm already at the dealership and they're doing their "diagnosis". They quoted me $260 for all of the sway bar bushings, which I think is a fair price and is the reason I decided to come here. What do I do now? If they tell me it's the struts should I insist on having them replace only the sway bar bushings? It seems to me that it was much worse this morning because it was pretty cold (20s). I didn't notice the noise at all when I first got the car, but that week the highs were in the upper 50s. That seems to indicate that it is some sort of bushing.

I can't seem to find the Daizen kit for sway bar bushings for a '97 LS400 online. Does it not exist? I guess I will stick with genuine Lexus parts! Maybe I'll even have the Lexus dealership do it!

Thank you all for the advice. I think I will start out by changing the stabilizer/sway bar bushings. It may not solve the problem, but it will be my first real project on the car and will be a great way, IMO, to bond with it! :) (So far I have little emotional connection to it since it's pretty boring to drive. I still enjoy it, though!) If that doesn't work, I'll take it to a Lexus dealership and see if they can't figure it out.

Thanks. How much $$$ are we talking? It's the strangest thing. I just went for a drive to try to diagnose the problem. Even going full speed over speed bumps produces absolutely no noise, but going over a dip and/or cornering hard while going over a bump/dip produces this quiet crunching sound. I cannot reproduce the sound by bouncing the car up and down using my bodyweight on each corner of the car when I'm standing outside it.

I live in Northern Virginia and virtually every gas station has 10% ethanol in their gasohol. I'm looking for 100% gasoline because my gas mileage seems to be adversely affected by ethanol, and I have no idea how to find these gas stations short of driving to each one and looking for the sticker that says it has ethanol. Does anyone know of some registry of gas stations with 100% gasoline?

I guess it's more of a clicking/creaking sound. I'm going to assume it's the sway bar bushings and replace those.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the EGR pipe. I had this problem in a Mazda Miata. Luckily with the Miata, the EGR tube was easy to get to and a shop only charged me about $100 to fix. I think the EGR pipe in the LS 400 is significantly more difficult to access.