yeoco

I just bought a pre-owned 2006 gx470 in mint condition. One thing I notice is that around 55-65mph I get a shimmy. This is an intermittent problem. I think it happens more when easing up on the gas vs accelerating. I had the tires rebalanced, rotated and aligned...but still the problem persists.

I have searched on this problem and others have complained the same thing. I know if I bring it into the dealer they will probably say it needs new tie rods, bearings, cv joint or who knows what. I want to fix the problem but don't want to get soaked by the dealer just replacing everything. Any suggestions??

subie2GX

Did you buy a CPO from Lexus?

chrisvr6

Same shimmy. I put 22's on though. Did a rebalance. Nothing. Going to try an alignment.

yeoco

No, I Bought the car from a Toyota dealer and was offered the purchase of an extended warranty but declined. The car was taken care of and being a current Lexus owner of a 1999 rx300 I was confident in the lexus brand and quality...so I declined. If I can get it fixed I have no problem with it...but if it is a problem with the design of the car I do not want to take it to lexus and spend $1,000 and then they tell me that is the way it is.

cssnms

My guess is it's a tire balance problem. Where did you have your tires balanced? Toyota? Lexus? Costco?

The tires on my GX are prone to getting out of balance every so often and the symptons included a shimmy in the steering wheel at 65/70 mph. I always have my tires balanced at Lexus now. Over the years I have tried having my tires balanced at least 2 different service shops to include a Toyota dealership and sadly not one of them could ever get my tires balanced. I brought my truck back to Toyota after paying them to balance my tires and the tech actually tried to convince me my tires were out of round! Mind you these are the orignal tires I have had on this truck for the last 56k mi. I called BS and took my truck back to Lexus to have them rebalanced and sure enough when they finished it drove as smooth as silk. You might pay a little more at Lexus, but I have learned that there is more of an art to balancing tires and that not all balancing machines are created equal and many dealerships/service shops do not routinly recalibrate their machines.

I would recommend taking it to Lexus and have them do it. They should be able to provide you a balance report for each tire to show that they are true. If they can't get them true they should tell you and something else is wrong (tire out of round, bent rim etc). If they are true and you still have the shimmy then it's something else entirely.