2007 ES350

I have an interminent knocking/rattling noise coming from the suspension. I thought it was the sway bars so i got them replaced and the noise is still there. In the last year I've done inner/outer tie rods, ball joints and sway bars. I can't pinpoint when the noise started but you can hear it at 10-20 mph and what i noticed was you can also hear it when going 40-50mph and slightly turning the wheel on a winding road. It sounds like its coming from the driver side. it's almost like a rattling noise but you can feel something isn't right when you brake- you can hear and somewhat feel "suspension looseness" when braking. Like something is moving.....when I go over big speed bumps, nothing. It's like on certain bumps/roads the noise is present

I tightened all the strut screws and noticed that one of the screws just spins and spins- this is on the driver side strut.

I took the car to my guy and he said everything looks good except that my rack and pinion is leaking. He didn't notice any play.

Can the leaky rack and pinion cause knocking/rattling?

 

I assume you mean you replaced the sway bar endlinks and maybe the bushings. Nobody ever replaces the sway bars themselves as they can outlast the car.

The power steering leak could be a source if you do not maintain the proper fluid level and it gets damaged. But that is unlikely.
You may want to get another opinion from a different independent mechanic.

It could be a bad strut mount or strut mount bearing. How old are your front struts and mounts?
Did he check all the motor mounts?
Did he inspect the brake calipers and related components?

If you are in Montgomery County, MD take it to Satellite Motors in Silver Spring as they work on a lot of Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

 

Correct- I replaced the sway bar end links. The struts were all replaced 2 years ago.

inner/outer tir rods and ball joints in the last year.

I'm thinking it's the sway bar bushings- the noise is not consistent and you can't hear any knocking/rattling over speed bumps. It's really weird- but you can definitely hear/feel something when driving slow. I'm going to drop the car off at another mechanic Wednesday.

 

It was my lower control arm. I replaced them 3 years ago but used cheap $50 rock auto control arms. I replaced both with OEM and I'm good to go. I remember when my friend changed them at toyota, he was done in 45 minutes. Not sure why this shop tried to make it seem like them have to take the entire suspension apart to take out the control arm. It's apparently labor intensive but from I remember, the hardest part was raising the engine to remove the engine mount to get to the middle bolt. Even that wasn't that bad.

i got both sides done with OEM parts for $1300. I think labor alone from lexus is $1800 for ONE side- yourmechanic.com quoted me $1300 for ONE side.

So yea, I got a good deal from this shop.

 

EDIT- noise is still somewhat present. I took the car back today. If 10 being the worst, the noise is now a 3/4 after the control arm replacement.

I did notice that one of the top strut bolts spins and spins- it is stripped. Maybe a loose strut is causing the intermittent popping? Tried to hold with a vice grip but bolt just spins and never comes off

sigh

 

Do you remember what this cheap brand was ? I am due for control arms in the near future and was considering going with Moog.

 

It was Delphi- I think you should be good with Moog. They are pretty reputable. I also suggest changing the ball joints. Since the entire control arm is coming off, make everything new when putting it back on.
Again, don't go cheap. I only went cheap because the car had 198k miles on it when I bought it 3 years ago. I wasn't sure how long I was going to keep it, so I cut corners when I started to replace parts. 3 years and 10k miles later, the control arm went bad.

Also another edit- not only were my controls arms bad, I had play in my intermediate steering shaft. I got that replaced to and the steering is much tighter now. Car feels great.

So I had 2 sources of noise, bad control arm and bad shaft.