i still havent seen any aftermarket pads with low dust for this car

 

Thanks for all the wonderful discussion about 2018 LC 500. I got mine two Saturdays ago (with 7,500 miles) after owning two different versions of GS 350, RC 350 to, now, LC 500. The dilemma started as soon as I got the car from Jim Falk Beverly Hills Lexus. For one, the brake from my LC made eerie screeching noises, mostly coming from the rear right, almost too consistently. The pressure of the brake when I depress/press and the way I drive literally had nothing to do with it. So, I had a foreman from Jim Falk drive it, he heard a whole lot of noise too, and put my car away for about two days. The noise when I got the car back subsided a little however like many of the LC owners witnessed, the speech that I got from the service manager was all too familiar to what R6chick77 mentioned - "It's a high performance vehicle and the brake will make this type of noises (and that the loud noise is inevitable)." Hmm.. $100K car but they can't do anything about it?

I want to know, other than hiring an attorney, what is the best course of action to resolve this 'brake' situation (besides getting after-market brakes and/or upgrade brake pads? Did any owner(s) reach out to Lexus NA and what sort of recommendations were given from the corporate office? I know the sales manager that if anything I can switch out to a different and newer LC with little to no miles but the brake noise in itself does not qualify for the CA Lemon Law, unfortunately, upon talking to my best friend who is an attorney himself and he was baffled that Lexus would produce $100K car that would have such issue. Luckily, my car is a lease and I can ride it out for a year or two until something else comes along that I can switch out of. I also contacted Lexus NA last week but I don't want to relive the nightmare of going back and forth with the service dealership and the corporate office all over again.

Just on a side note, I leased a new 2014 GS 350 and had that infamous "wind noise." This issue took more than dozen of times until it finally got fixed. Lexus NA actually thanked me for helping them resolving the issue. They sent me some gears and that was about it.

Any comments are appreciated.

 

I'm wondering if we can gather up a few owners and call as a group, to state whats been going on. It seems like its a re-occuring issue. Something that they haven't yet been able to figure out, how to fix. Its very frustrating. I am sorry to hear that youre also experiencing this. Does anyone know if gathering up a group to talk to LEXUS NA, would even do anything?

 

It is not bull****. Performance brakes DO make noise and it IS normal. What you are hearing is the result of high-frequency vibration caused by the high-friction pad compounds your car uses for pads. Depending on how hard the hydraulics are pressing on the pad, the pads act as a tuning fork when pressed against the rotor. These high friction compounds are what gives pads their initial bite, fade/heat resistance, performance characteristics/abilities, etc. I am not able to look into the part #s for the LC yet since it's so new, but there's a good chance it shares pads with the GS/IS F Sport models, etc which ALL make noises when it equipped with the high friction pads.

I have to repeat this all the time on several car forums for people who complain about brake squeal on modern performance cars. It's not a defect, it's not something you "get an attorney for," etc etc. It's the nature of high performance hardware. Happens all day long on new M3s/M4s and track-prepped cars. Race cars squeal OBNOXIOUSLY (10x what we're experiencing on performance-oriented street cars).

Now can you do stuff to minimize it? Sure.

You (or lets be real, your technician) can install additional shims or backing plates on the back of the pads to quell vibration, or add some goop between the plates and pads. If anything, Lexus would probably do this as a TSB. But overall, it's the nature of the beast. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Or you can try aftermarket low friction pads aka low dust pads, but that'll result in crappy performance and I'd highly recommend against it.

Also power wash your wheels regularly to prevent dust buildup between all the little parts which can exacerbate the noise. I power wash mine once a week and the squeals tend to go away. Then come back a few days later, but intermittently.

My IS200T with the F Sport Lexus high friction compound pads (brand new from the dealer) squeal every now and then and doesn't bother me a bit. In fact, it's a badge of honor and I wish it did it even more.

All the stuff about you are braking too hard, don't brake enough etc etc. BS. Use the car and its brakes however you'd like how ever you'd like.

 

This is much appreciated, and is consistent with other assessments I've read. What I don't have a good understanding for is - why my LC has never shown any signs of this issue (perhaps others' too?). I've also read a lot about "bedding" and how proper bedding can have a positive effect on reducing brake noise. I'm no expert, and I certainly haven't done anything consciously "to bed the rotors" while driving, but perhaps this explains my good fortune? I drove my LC only about 1200 miles before taking it off the road for the winter. Not a lot of miles, but I expect that's enough to have experienced this issue at least once(?).

Also, I find it hard to believe this makes any difference, but I've never driven it in the rain. So the only time my brakes ever got wet is the one time I washed the car before waxing it. I do wipe away the brake dust on the wheel face and inner barrels using Adam's waterless wash and a micro towel after ever drive. And sometimes I blow the dust off the rims with an air compressor. I wonder if water and brake dust has more of a tendency to "cake" the plates and pads?

Anyway, I just wanted to add my two cents. No issues with brake noise here. Yet.

 

 

I've owned 2 F series Lexus- an "11 ISF (bought used with 28K miles), and now a '16 RCF, bought new, now with ~7K miles. The ISF was tracked on one occasion at the Texas World Speedway 2.9 mile road course, and I was very pleasantly surprised that the stock brake system, without so much as fluid flush, suffered no fade or other issues whatsoever. I have upgraded brake pads/fluids on several cars I owned that saw regular track use, so I am familiar with the options/benefits/drawbacks of various aftermarket pad offerings. Neither car was/is driven very gently. Although the RCF has not seen the track, neither car has had the slightest issue with with factory brakes, noise or otherwise. While there may be a aftermarket pad compound that could cure the LC500 noise issue, I would be more concerned with the possible pre-collision system false activations or hanging posted earlier in this thread. In any case, I see no reason why the LC500, or any other car, should have noisy OEM brakes. Lexus will solve the issue in time...the sooner the better, as I, and many other high end car buyers, do their research to avoid purchasing a expensive headache. First adoptors will suffer through some bugs, even with a Lexus. Citing that there are worse cars, or that the customer can may be able to fix his own new six figure car that is squealing when he brakes, does not change the reasonable expectation that that even a $12K new car shouldn't make offensive noises under normal operation, safety concern or not.

 

The above is patently false and categorically untrue.

While it is correct that some high performance brakes are notorious for the noise that they generate, e.g. McLaren SLR, it has to be stressed that not all high performances brakes are noisy. Technology have also progressed over the years.

Go test drive a Bentley Continental GT or Flying Spur or Mercedes-Benz S-Class or perhaps an Aston Martin. These cars are heavy and have high performance brakes as well. Do they make noises? The LC is a GT car, the brake rotor and pad selection should be appropriate for the chosen application.

I am surprised that Lexus corporate hasn't come up with a solution to this or shown willingness to rectify the situation for unhappy customers. What happened to the legendary Lexus customer service?

 

OE Pads are in-house as we will scan them this week if there is time. We will come up with a solution. Curious if the customers with noise have both shims installed in the caliper as I ordered those as well. Bed-in is pretty critical for brakes in terms of performance on longevity and the harder parts is that bed-in on a brake setup like this requires a lot of temp cycles and a road that you can do it on. By the end of the bed in the pads should be hot and allows to cool down. That being said, it should be easy to bed in the brakes for a street driven pad. It's possible that Lexus had little choice when it came to brake compounds in that backing plate as dictated by Brembo, but there will be options soon.
Mike

 

I'm a bit late to the party but Lou (flowrider) had pointed this thread out recently and I went thought to read all of the posts and respond to help shed some more light on the issue some owners are facing. To water it down and get straight to the bottom line, after going through everyone's posts it seems fairly clear to me the issue is that Lexus went with a more aggressive pad compound on this car which do require a fairly simple bedding process and not many people have done it or know that they need to. The Lexus service writers/advisors have no idea what they are talking about in most cases and are compounding the issue by angering and/or confusing their customers with BS responses to the point where (as I've just read) some owners are lawyering up and/or taking a $20K+ hit on a new car over a set of brake pads OR potentially a simple 10 minute bedding procedure. I'm not disagreeing that Lexus perhaps made a mistake in choosing the compound they did for this type of car but try to put yourself in their shoes; would you rather go a bit too aggressive and have some noise complaints or go too conservative and have some potential brake failures (as an extreme example to get my point across)? One is a comfort concern and the other is a serious safety concern.

-Matt M.

 

Hi everyone,
I just finished reading through this entire thread, and it really brought some doubt to my decision. I'm actually in the market for a new vehicle and the LC500 is at the top of my list. I've noticed a considerable amount of pre owned LC's in the market, and this brake issue could be a partial reason behind it. I kept asking myself why such a new vehicle has so many pre owned models already in the market, and I'm starting to believe this could be it.
Honestly, I'm still considering it, but would prefer to see a solution from Lexus in the form of a TSB. I really hope corporate decides on a resolution to this, as all you current owners shouldn't be going through such an issue (though I agree that high performance brakes tend to squeal). I will be regularly checking up on this thread to see if there are any solutions from either the manufacturer or from after market resellers (in the form of an affordable option).
Good luck to all of you!

 

This doesn't make sense are there a after market pad for this car yet
high performance brakes do make a noise, to much metal compound not good for the street or rotors
has Lexus acknowledge he problem if not about time
has anyone ( independent come up with a fix, it can't be tooooo hard )
put more CRC BRAKE QUITE on the back of the pads
GOOD LUCK and keep the updates coming cheers.

 

I was told by LEXUS NA, that they have received multiple complaints about the issue. That they are working on a resolution. This was a week ago. Im assuming that they will find a solution sometime in 2018. I wasn't having it, so I got rid of my LC last week.

 

^^^^ MY MY MY

Lou