Tifo71

Hi all,
Has anybody had to replace the struts on their ES 300 with AVS? I have a 98 & am having a really difficult time finding them. I found one website, don't remember name right now, but they wanted $400+ for each one! Also, hoping for a link to something cheaper, if it's even possible.
Thanks in advance.

Power6

You are going to pay a lot for them. Absolute cheapest you can get them is going to be about $325 ea before shipping costs. I have done this in the past by getting the part numbers from Lexuspartsnow.com and then putting the part number into Google and/or various Toyota parts websites until I found the cheapest. Even still you are at least $1200 to replace all of them in just parts, before you get to labor, or other parts like the strut mounts and whatever else might be worn out.

Now if you are a nut like me you value those AVS struts (can't get this ride and handling balance in any other strut for this chassis) and you can replace the parts yourself it might be worth it. If you don't care that much or just need to keep the cost low, you can replace the AVS struts with any normal struts for this car and it will not affect anything, no dash lights etc. so you always have that option.

Tifo71

Thanks for the info and the link, very helpful. Just to make sure and I'm pretty sure I know the answer but, if the boots on the strut are broken, I pretty much need new ones, correct?

Power6

not necessarily! The boots keep dirt from getting in and possibly destroying the seal on the strut rod which would then kill the strut by letting the oil and gas pressure leak out.

Due to the expense of the AVS struts it is worth confirming they are gone. You could have a mechanic replace the strut mounts (boots are attached to them) and check the struts while it is all apart. A bad AVS strut can be felt by compressing them by hand off the car in my exprience. They might be just fine, or maybe you only have one bad one and the rest are fine. Worth diagnosing rather than throw parts at it when they are a few hunderd $$$ each.

lxes330

Recently changed AVS (Adaptive Variable Suspension) or TEMS (Toyota Electronic Modulated Suspension) with regular struts. No lights on dashboard.

I also searched a lot on forum as AVS were too expensive. Dealer quote was around $900 per struts. Anyways, I thought it will be helpful for people who are looking for replacement AVS strut with regular struts. It just works fine.