johnshew

2008 LS460L with touring and air suspension.

Car was pulling to the right. Put on a new set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 tires. Then went to the local Lexus dealership for an alignment.

After the alignment the car continues to pull slightly to the right. The tech acknowledges the car is pulling to the right.

After asking to get this fixed, the dealership came back with the attached printout and said the car is to spec. They don't want to do anything else. The front left caster and both cross cambers were not addressed.

Any suggestions? And is it reasonable to ask the dealership to address these issues?

Update: Thanks to the Club Lexus members I was able to get this fully resolved. Plus got new control arms. See #17 for the details. Thanks again for all the help.

Chuckwagon

How much does it pull? Does it only go right, even if the road is cambered to the left? My car tends to follow the slight camber they put into road surfaces to help them drain, drifting slightly left when in left leaning lanes and right when in right leaning lanes. On the rare flat surface, or straddling the crown of the road, it tracks straight. Maybe that's what you are seeing.

BarrettF77

I'd have to agree with Chuck. I had a pull on mine new, lessened it substantially, but if you have wide tires and grooved pavement, trammeling seems to be an inescapable thing with wider tires.

robert1408

Thanks for posting the print out. I did lots of alignments before retiring last year from the tire and service business. The first thing I looked at was the SAI and included angle readings which will tell you if there's any bent suspension parts. Yours are ok. Those camber readings are the problem, assuming there is not a tire issue which can be checked out by crossing the front tires (even if they're directional).

Camber adjustment is not a part of a normal alignment on these cars because it adjusts by replacing the frame mounted brackets that hold the upper control arms. That's a separate parts and labor thing. The low left side camber could also be caused by bad bushings on those upper control arms, a fairly common problem.

ibidu1

iTrader: (1)

I have a feeling its a tire issue, I would swap the right with the lefts if they are not directional as Robert stated. Even if the tires are brand new, they are not all perfect.

johnshew

Thanks Robert. Very helpful feedback on the camber adjust... especially about checking the bushings and that it is reasonable for the dealership to charge extra to do the brackets on the control arms.

Chuck: regarding the question on how much pull to the right, crowns, and so on... On the highway, with the LS heading straight if you take your hands off the wheel after a second or two you will be heading into the next lane to the right. Happens from any lane on a high crowned road.

Ibudu, Barrett: I will have them do the tire swap as Robert suggests and double check all the pressures. But based on Roberts feedback I suspect I will need to have someone check the bushings and then probably work on getting the front cross camber minimized with the brackets fix.

Everyone: what about the out of spec caster on the front left - is that something to get fixed? And is it difficult to fix?

BarrettF77

Keep us updated and good luck. Wild goose chases are always fun at the dealership.

robert1408

That left front caster is only 1/10 degree out of spec. I would not be at all concerned about it on any car more than a few years old.

Grouchy

iTrader: (1)

Could be a radial pull from a defective tire. Had it happened to me after I got my wheels. It was a pain though trying to get the tire shop to acknowledge it was a defective tire.

johnshew

Thanks Robert.

Given all this it sounds like a straight-forward plan... ask dealership to swap front tires and redo the road test.

If the LS still pulls to the right after the swap it is probably the cross camber. To fix this first we check the bushings. If it is not the bushings then adjust the control arms with brackets.

If the tire swap fixes the problem then I talk to Costco and have them look for something defective in the tires - as Grouchy suggests.

Sound right? Let me know if I missed anything. Appreciate all the insights and feedback on this.

edarte

Have you seen this TSIB

johnshew

Thank you. I had seen rev 1 but not this rev 2 so this is really helpful.

My understanding is that Lexus will only do this work for free if the car is less than 12 months or 20,000 miles. Otherwise I pick this up... correct?

caha14

I went through this issue (among others!) when I first got my LS - same car as you except for Touring package, so I have a couple of thoughts. At the time, I did discuss this TSIB with my dealer and was actually talked out of it (never mind it's well over $1000). If you haven't hit or bent anything, your control arm bushings are ok (which is certainly a question on the LS460), steering components are fine, and toe is within spec, this car should not pull.

My car was pulling terribly with the Pilot Sport Pluses I first put on. We couldn't rotate them side to side because they are directional. Long story short, a test drive with a set of OEM Michelins from another car completely eliminated the pull, so I promptly got rid of the original tires. FWIW, after my case, the shop foreman told me of a couple of other pull cases, and they also had these tires! Now, I want to think the Pilot Sport 3s are a different animal (and they're not directional, for starters), but I concur that this is the place to start.

Other than that, the only other thought is to ensure the car is aligned at the proper height (since you have air suspension), as this can slightly throw off the specs. The dealer probably did this, but it's something to keep in mind if the tire rotation does not resolve the issue.

lex460l

im having this problem but to the left and its driving me crazy

johnshew

Here is the latest.

Thanks to the advice from all of you here... on Friday I went back to the dealership and had them look at the control arm bushings and swap the front wheels. The top bushings had problems and the bottom bushings showed some cracking.

When reviewing the situation with the service manager I pointed out that we have the extended platinum warranty. Upon confirming this he agreed that they will fix the top bushings and see if Lexus warranty will let him fix the bottom bushings as well. And when everything is disassembled he will get the caster set properly.

That sounded reasonable to me so agreed to proceed. I left the LS with them and am currently driving around in a new RX loaner.

Thanks again for the help with this. Will provide an update when the work is done and hopefully this fixes the issues.