thomas1

I am experiencing a vibration above 40 mph to about 65. The tires have been rotated and balanced. It can be felt through the steering wheel. and there is a slight drone. Putting the tranny in nuetral has no effect. The car has 133k miles, The left axle shaft feels a little loose when moved 90 degrees to its rotation, but their is no clicking noise at any speed. the right shaft feels much tighter. The ball joints appear tight when I pried on them with a crow bar. The wheel bearings sound quiet. Please note I am on my second transmission but have no indications of failure and fluid looks great. The car is AWD and the differentials front and rear have had there fluids changed about 20k miles ago. Could my left axle shaft be going out? And has anybody used a EMPI brand replacement shaft assembly? I just hate throwing useless parts at it. By the way the drone (noise) only varies with road speed. It is not loud, but after 8years I know how it sounds. When I put it in nuetral the sound remained the same following the speed of the vehicle.

Lexmex

This is the first area I would suspect, this bushing can get loose, but I found that when I replaced both sides no way I could get at the bushing and ended up forking out $300 USD for each lower suspension arm all due to this bushing. Could feel it in the steering wheel. What you have to do is jack up the RX and shake the wheel and see if there is vibration there.

thomas1

That lower control arm bushing does not look easy. Are you saying once you removed the control arm you were not able to remove the bushing? Mine appears tight as I have no play on the wheel when the car is jacked up. Any other ideas.

Lexmex

Take a very close look at it. It only needs to move a tad and you can definitely feel it on the steering wheel. Keep in mind your steering wheel assembly is also on the left side and if that thing is loose in any way, you will also certainly feel it. I don't doubt a problem with the axle. Perhaps one way is to jack up the vehicle, have one person at the wheel and then another peson shaking the axle and see when the play occurs (I know my uncle and I would do it that way)

trebled26

Any one experiencing vibration coming from these these Lexus RX AWD & Toyota AWD vehicle, please do not ignore the the rear upper control arms, one end of the arm has a ball in it, which pivot like a ball joint, when it start wearing out you will experience massive vibration coming from the vehicle, it might even feel like it’s coming from the front, if you are not experienced in diagnosing vibration. The best way know base on my experience is, if you are feeling vibration, pay attention to see if it feel more like the rear wheel is bouncing and accompanied by noise. You will know it’s not a wheel bearing, because most time wheel bearing has a roaring noise. My 2014 Lexus RX 450h AWD only had 79000, when I bought it used, started noticing vibration the day I test drove, replaced several suspension parts, some seemed to help, others did not yield any results. It wasn’t until I replaced the rear upper control arms, which did not even look like they were worn, dust boots were still intact and except for what seemed like to normal play in the joints, all seemed functional, but don’t fool, those things are critical to keeping the rear tires and wheels planted to the road.