enoch861

Left it in Neutral and things are the same.
Had someone sit in the front passenger and the front and rear passenger sides went down about .3 or .4 inches. Same thing with the person sitting in the back. But you can still tell that the car is leaning to the left.

Devh

I cannot deny that your picture shows a gross exaggeration even more then the numbers you are getting.
The only thing I can think off is to check for previous suspension/ body work.

I have a SWB with regular suspension. i will measure mine tomorrow and give you my numbers.
My car only has 28k miles so it should be a good base for comparison.

enoch861

So I got on the ground and tried to see if there was any big difference in suspension components and to my untrained eye there wasn't much I could see other than a leaking passenger rear shock. Maybe one of the front sides have different sized steering knuckles? Or the control arms were torqued in different loaded positions? Maybe one of the rear lower shock mounts is crooked? (I was looking at the drivers rear side although it looks the same as the passenger side). Otherwise things look pretty similar. It's quite difficult to tell what the issue could be without taking it in. Here are some pictures I took of all sides. For some reason it's not letting me organize them but they'll go in the following order: passenger rear, drivers rear, drivers front, passenger front.

Devh

I think you possibly found your problem. A leaking strut is blown and its possible that it has lost it's rebound compression. It is possible although rare but if the LS spring is strong enough it can overcome the strut resistance and sit higher not lower as you would suspect.
It could also be that the other struts are bad as well.
How many miles are on the car.

Keep in mind that if one corner is higher or lower then the norm it also effects the other three heights. The best way to visualize this is having a chair with a peg leg.

enoch861

That sounds like something that shouldn't happen, but anything is possible.
Did you measure yours yet? I'm trying to figure out which of the 2 sets of numbers I got are the closest to "stock". Hopefully it's not all the shocks that are bad and if it is hopefully the dealer I purchased the car from would be willing to foot the whole bill if not part of it since my warranty won't cover shocks.
I got the car at 60k 2 weeks ago and I've put on 1300 miles since then. So sitting at 61,3xx

Devh

I will measure mine soon and let you know.
Keep in mind that if one ride height is off the other three will be as well. That is how difficult corner balancing can be when adjusting the ride height on coil overs.

CRowe14

[QUOTE=enoch861;9037948]So I finally took some measurements today. These measurements are from the center of the wheel hub to the bottom of the fender:
Drivers Front: 15.5"
Drivers Rear: 15.3"
Passenger Front: 16.1" (give or take .1)
Passenger Rear: 16.1" (give or take .1)


I figured I'd take my measurements while on my lunch and this was fresh on my mind.
Mind you, my vehicle is an 07 LWB with 67.8k on the dash.

Driver Front: 15 23/32" (nearly 3/4)
Driver Rear: 15 1/2"

Passenger Front: 16 1/4"
Passenger Rear: 15 22/32" (nearly 3/4)

Devh

This is what I got. Keep in mind that my car has very low millage and on the flattest surface I could find.

Drivers Front: 15.5"
Drivers Rear: 15.25"
Passenger Front: 15.62"
Passenger Rear: 15.5"

I'm pretty amazed because it's a text book measurement but it leaves me a bit skeptical because it's never dead on. If you notice the drivers front and passenger rear are exactly balanced. The drivers rear and passenger front is unbalanced slightly but well within the margin of error.

CRowe14

Great numbers Devh. Your vehicle is practically dead on.
This thread seems to get more and more interesting as it eveolves..to me anyways.
The observation and statement you made regarding the corners being nearly exact in measurement makes perfect sense, given the distribution of vehicle weight upon turns and variances in terrain.
Looking at my own numbers, it appears that my DF and PR are nearly dead on, but my PF and DR, there seems to be a disparity of about .75. Would you consider this an issue?
Amidst looking back at page one, Devh, I saw that you had made mention of the fact that the +/- of an approximate finger width would be ok, so i'd supposed my differentiation was ok.
Lastly, perhaps im reaching here, but with Devh's vehicle being a 2010 (?) with only 28k (practically brand new) and mine being an 8+ year old vehicle with nearly 70k, the measurements are nearly the same. Would it be crazy to further compliment the craftsmanship of this vehicle, given the sheer weight of it and how certain parameters are maintained even over the course of many miles/years?

R Z

I haven't checked mine. However, I would highly recommend taking your car to an independent shop that works on Toyota/Lexus. Show them the situation and have them take a look. They probably can get right to the issue.

Devh

You bring up an interesting discussion. I can only speculate but there are going to be so many factors over the course of 70k miles and many years that can throw the corner balance off as all the components wear together.
I can imagine if the car only had one occupant over time vs a whole family and luggage will also effect the outcome.

I think you are understanding the concept of corner balance being related as diagonal.
What you do to one corner effects the opposite corner however it's not as simple as raising or lowering one side to even it because when you do this the other corners will be effected to a small degree. So in a nutshell it is a series of compromises to get close but what comes from the factory just might be perfect and then it goes down hill from there.

I think the most important thing to take away from this is to actually test the handling of the car and if it drives fine then there is no need to worry unless there is a gross exaggeration of the issue.
Most dampeners are only good for 80k miles, after that they lose a great deal of their dampening force which is not noticed by most people because it's a gradual decline.

enoch861

Honestly if you never looked at the car, you'd never know that it's lopsided. It drives just fine although there is the occasional low speed thump noise over larger bumps/speed bumps from the passenger rear which is most likely due to the shot shock. It looks really bad that such a nice car can look so lop sided and in my case it's very noticeable. Also during my last trip I had people flashing me from behind. I'm assuming that's why they were flashing me.
And I think after looking at your numbers and also CRowe14's I believe fixing that rear shock should get things back to normal since my drivers side front and rear seem to be normal. I'll definitely be getting this taken a look at and get that shock replaced if that really is the issue.

Unfortunately the closest reputable independent Toyota/Lexus shop is an hour and 45 minutes away. The closest Lexus dealer being an hour and a half while the closest Toyota dealership is only 5-10 minutes. I just made an appointment with the Euro shop that's about 10 minutes away that's done some work on my A6 and hopefully they can give me a definitive answer.

CRowe14

Understood!
I hadn't even heard of corner balancing before it was spoken of here.
This practice would seem to be quite tedious, however vitally important for the vehicle.
My car was a company car for three years where the original original owner had it for three years and put about 28-31k on it. Then the second owner put about 35k on it over the next 5. If judging by the condition of the seats, neither owner had a child/children and the passenger seat was rarely, and I mean rarely used. Trunk area isn't abused but definitely has signs of wear. But what I wouldn't know at all, is how either owner drove the vehicle.
One more thing I forgot to mention earlier, was that when I performed the measurements, the car was parked on a slight slanted grade. The rear of the car was on the area of the grade that slanted downward. But even with this being the case, I doubt the measurements would vary too drastically.
Over all I am very satisfied with how the car handles. However this thread has influenced me to take a good look at my struts for leaks, just because.
Enoch, I definitely hope you are able to resolve the issue, and hope the strut will be the only culprit! Otherwise and again, it's a beautiful car!
Great thread! Great forum!

Devh

You cant just replace one bad one on the rear at that millage. The only way you can get away with a single shock replacement is if the car had really low millage to begin with. I would replace all of them at that millage as I have said struts are only good for 80k miles. At the very least I would replace just the rear otherwise you end up chasing your own tail.

Twin tube shocks just get progressively worse gradually and generally don't leak. The reason why a single shock would leak is primarily because the strut shaft has gone out of round which can be a manufacturing defect but most of the time it's because of a previous accident.
This is why accident cars come with unknowns.

Devh

Corner balancing is one of the black arts and it's not an easy thing to do but I gained a great deal of understanding chasing my own tail. Most road going cars do not need to be corner balanced because they are balanced from the factory though engineering. When you have those that want to lower their car often they will do it for looks and greatly effect the handling for the worse. These people think high performance tires and tightness of the suspension without any give is good handling but given a chance at any aggressive driving they will end up hitting a tree.