Hi everybody-picked up a beautiful 00 a month ago it has a lot of clunking going on with the front suspension. Any recommendations for good Lexus Indy shops or reputable dealers to work on this?

 

In my experience, the most common culprits are:

Shock mounts (articulation of the car over angles or BIG bumps would cause a noise like "sheet metal popping", usually coming in pairs. Pull the dust covers off the top of the shock towers under the hood and check for cracks)
Lower ball joints (constant small clunks over most small bumps)
Strut bars (low speed clunk when braking)
Upper control arms if the bushes are shot (this hasn't happened to me so I can't describe it, but are often the easiest to visually diagnose)
There are also several other places that are possible, but those 4 items are the most common culprit

Finding out which is causing the noise is a challenge. My lower ball joints were visually perfect, no exterior signs of defect, but replacing them cured so many problems. Excessive body roll, constant clunking noise, excessive tramlining on the highway, hell even my steering wheel had vertical play which would make noise. All of it, fixed. By far the biggest improvement to the car out of any suspension component I've replaced. Word on the forum is that they typically get tired after ~100,000 miles and are considered a common wear item and are reasonably inexpensive and quite easy to replace. Best of luck tracking things down.

As for shop recommendations - best of luck. It's tough to find someone skilled to work on the car. In the past I've joined local car clubs on Facebook and then posted a question asking for recommendations. That gives you a place to start. But perhaps someone here lives locally and can give you a heads up.

 

congrats that is a beauty!

tough to know exactly what's wrong without hearing in person, if you get a noise like this at low speeds:

it's 100% the sway bar bushings, which are actually quite cheap and easy to replace, part is 48815-50151

this is one of my old ones

 

Can confirm, that video (rusty door hinge) are sway bar bushes. Super easy, super cheap.

 

don't know any east coast shops; have you checked the regional section (forum is not as active so i understand asking here):
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/northeast-21/

if you have any mechanical skill maybe you can look at it yourself! start with the easy stuff first: visual inspection of the bushings. most common problems 400fanboy listed. get under the car (safely) and just take a look.

compromised bushings look torn and have play if you grab the suspension and do a slight jiggle. some play is normal but it will take considerable amount of force. light force and play = bad bushings.

 

Best bet is to jack it up and look at every part of the suspension. Visually inspect for tears or worn, dry rotted rubber. Try pushing and pulling on all parts with a bit of force to see if anything moves or is noisy. I used to use a rubber mallet to bang on stuff to hear if there's any kind of metal noises. If ya can't do it yourself, I would say bring it to a dealer, not one of these chain store muck mechanics that only know how to change a tire.
The most dangerous part in the front suspension, in my opinion, is the Lower Ball Joints. I had one snap on both of my last LS400s. (I plan on changing them on my new LS400) Just like with 400fanboy, mine looked perfect. I found out the hard way that they weren't. Luckily I was only going less then 10 MPH both times, can't imagine if I was going 80 and they snapped. I guess I wouldn't be here now telling you this.
How many miles on yours?

 

I have the same year car, and the same color, with the same kind of rims too lol. We would be twins if I parked next to you. It's hard to acknowledge one clunk from another clunk in text. I can my share my personal experience with you. My car has less than 150K miles. Of course I drive on California Highways, not on New Jersey roads, but, I had clunks a lot I personally noticed with my drivers side front wheel area. It really was hard to pin-point but it seemed like something going on with suspension parts or something. It was an audible snapping maybe clunking noise especially when slow turning. What kind of tipped me off was I was stopped, got out of my car, then sort of turned the wheel a bit, not moving in Park, I pressed the brakes and I actually heard a little bit of clicking just from pressing the brakes not moving. So, I took off the front wheel, removed the brake pads, they looked fine, but, then I looked again after a bit I noticed one side of the pad was worn just a little more than the other side on the other end. So there was an uneven wear condition. So, then it's like okay what caused that because that's not normal. So, what I did notice is I don't like how tightly the pins feel when I have to slide them through to get them in place it seems like there's a strain to align it into place. I know that might seem weird but that's the best I can describe it. I don't know why it's like that exactly or what exactly I can attribute that too. So what I did is clean brush the guide pins that hold the brake pads in place, and lubricated all contact areas. I put new pads in also. I put it all back together and the noises are gone. Now I could swear previous to what I knew there was something wrong with my front end but what I did fixed it. It's like the pads were too tight and catching on the pins on one side especially. They really should not be like that. It's either like there's a possible issue with the manufacturing of this particular year caliper maybe some got past QC that were a little off, or, it is possible that it could be something else. My brakes have and had no issues with functionality, just were the cause of clunking and clicking noise that I could swear was a ball joint or stabilizing rod or something like that. So that's my experience, not saying it's your issue but I would certainly look before I spent, and find out exactly what is wrong. It's like I could have paid someone to replace my lower ball joint, still would not have fixed the clunk and clicking noises. So proper diagnosis is a big deal, will save you a lot of grief and money.

 

And mine is also the Platinum series too lol, same car!