jjohnson7

I was wondering if anybody could help me with the only two problems I've ever had with my IS 300.

1) There's a creaking noise in the driver's seat. I had the dealer check it out once. They thought maybe a bolt that holds the seat to the frame had come loose, but it turns out that wasn't the problem. The creaking noise seems to be coming from inside the seat. Anybody ever have this problem? If so, is there a remedy?

2) I have a set of winter wheels I bought from the Tire Rack. The rims are 17" Moda R6s, and the tires are Dunlop SP Winter Sport M2s. The first winter I had the wheels, they were great. However, when I had the wheels put on last fall, I told the garage not to balance them because they were already balanced, but they did anyway. The garage didn't balance the wheels properly, and since then I've had the wheels balanced two more times. They're still not right. Does anybody know if there's a trick to balancing these kind of wheels? I'm about ready to throw them all in the garbage and start over with different wheels.

Any help would be much appreciated. I've become extremely frustrated with these two problems, and they're spoiling what has otherwise been a great experience with my IS 300.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

welcome to the forum

1) i don't have that problem at all. i did have th eproblem of the driver seat not completely bolted on tight, but i don't ahve any noise

2) sometimes people use the hunter machine with road force (something like that) for balancing, maybe that helps. unless the tires / wheels are out of round, hard to imagine why it's out of balance

mmarshall

Sometimes, in some cars, the springs and the adjusting mechanisms that raise and lower the seat cushion can squeak or creak. You also did not mention if this was a power seat or not....not all IS300's have power seats. Try spraying under the seat as much as possible with WD-40 or a similiar lubricant. ( I know it's a tight fit and there's not much room). See if that doesn't help.


Many things can affect wheel balance. Make sure the balance machine was recently calibrated and the technician knows how to use it properly....you would be surprised at the number of people using them that don't really know that they are doing. Make sure the technician adjusts the machine for the correct wheel size (if applicable) Watch the wheel / tire assembly on the machine as it spins and see it there is any noticible up-and-down motion (hop) or side-to-side wobble ( lateral runout ). If the shop does not allow you to do this, my recommendation is to find another shop.....or use NTB (National Tire and Battery), which will.
Most alloy wheels are precision-cast, and it is rare to find one out-of-round. It is much more common for tires to be out-of-round. In the rare event you have a out-of-round wheel, sometimes doing what is called a 90 or 180 can make the tire / wheel assembly round again by taking off the tire and re-mounting it in a position 90 or 180 degrees opposite where it was before...this is called high-spot-low-spot balance where the deformities in the tire and wheel each cancel each other out and you get a prefectly round assembly. I have seen this work in a number of instances, mostly with non-alloy steel wheels. If the wheel is perfectly round and the tire STILL hops or wobbles, replace the tire....a 90 or 180 will not do any good. And.....if it is a new tire, DON'T take any excuses from the shop why they (or the tire manufacturer) won't replace it.
When the wheels are re-mounted, have the lug nuts either hand-torqued to the proper specs or MAKE SURE that the air-wrench is set to NO MORE than factory specs, which in most cars is 75-85 ft. / lbs. This figure should be in the Owners' Manual. Overtorqued wheels are a major source of rotor warpage and other problems.

If everything else checks out OK...the last thing to look for is a bent wheel hub.

You seem to have done the right thing by going with four new tires at all the corners. It is generally not recommended to have different tires front and rear...though sometimes it's OK. But...NEVER use different tires on the right and left sides of the car...unless it is a temporary spare at low speeds. That is just asking for trouble


Good luck...........and welcome to Club Lexus.

juniorsdad

one of the other creaking problems is the seat belt receiver...
the dealer changed mine out early on.

wjbertrand

I've got this creaking problem too. It seems to coming from near the inside (right edge) of seat near the seat belt take up so I suppose it might be coming from there instead.

With respect to the wheel balancing problem - is there any chance there's water in one of more of the tires? That happened to me with another car once and the tech got so frustrated trying to balance it he finally broke down the bead to have a look. There turned out to be about 100cc of water in there! Once they mopped up the water and scrubbed the inside of the tire dry it balanced nicely. My guess is that at some point the tire was filled from a poorly maintained compressor and the moisture got in there that way.

jjohnson7

Thanks a lot for all the great responses!

As a matter of fact, the creaking in my seat is coming right from the vicinity of the seatbelt receptacle. I think I'll try spraying WD-40 in the area, and under the seat. If that doesn't work, I'll talk to the Lexus dealer about a replacement receptacle.

Regarding the balancing of the wheels, I've often wondered if there isn't something inside one of the wheels that might be causing the imbalance. It's the damnedest thing, but sometimes the wheels don't seem to be out of balance. Water in the wheel might cause the wheels to be out of balance, but possibly not all the time. I bought a new rim, so tomorrow when I get the tire taken off the rim I believe may be bad, I'll ask them to check for water. If there's water in there I'l have them check all of the wheels.

Thanks again for all the responses!