lexus600hl

It does drive differently from the LS460l. The LS460L is a very nice car, of course.. but the 600HL is better because it has much lower center of gravity (due to batteries?).. The 460 moves like a lighter car.. the 600hl is more stately (like a rolls).. very high end feel to drive.. But if you have never driven it, you are not missing too much.. the 460l is a very nice car to drive!

I don't have the ls600hls anymore.. i sold one and actually gave the other to my employee.. it too is getting old.. Not too reliable.. The dash display does not work properly.. problems! Lexus does not build high quality cars as they used to. My first LS 400 - I used it for 240,000 miles - no engine or transmission issues.. but many other issues.. suspension, water pump etc..

I don't like the sound of the jaguar xjl v6. I find the engine noise to be very whiny and annoying.. younger people like it but I don't.
i like the sound of the jaguar xf v8 - non super charged.. and it sounds powerful..

Today, most cars are nice - except some american cars - like some Chryslers!
Camry and Accord are very nice to drive.
The Korean high end - the K900 - ugly but drove like a lexus es 300!
Cadillac is very nice.. it is almost equal to the lexus in most respects.
740il, jag xjl, A8, S550, ls 460l.. all are very nice and equal.. some better than others for individual preferences. My preference is the S500 for driving and styling followed by the Jaguar xjl v8.

jb12122005

I have a 2009 LS 460 AWD, do anyone knows which position the upper control arms needs to be? Where can I find some conversion coil struts from?

jb12122005

I hear a lot of people on here having problems with the clunking noise in the front of the LS460 cars. I know a little bit about working on a car. When I was looking at the front suspension of the car I saw the lower ball joints were busted. So, I'm changing out all the lower control arms and the ball joint and the outside tie rod too. I hope this help someone.

roadfrog

I'll tell you what I did...

I had one control arm and one ball joint that were bad. Rather than just replace those two components, I replaced all of my front control arms (upper and lower as well as both ball joints). I also went ahead and replaced the shocks as well. I did this because much of the work to get at these parts was already providing access to the other arms and such, so I figured I may as well do it all. Plus, the cost of the parts aftermarket were relatively inexpensive and the labor was not a whole lot more to do them. I pd a local shop 900 dollars to do all the CA's and shocks, and a wheel alignment. I paid an additional 600 bucks or so for the parts (inc the shocks). So, for 1500 +/-, I have a whole new front end and won't have to worry about anything for at least another 100k miles and will likely be onto a new car by then.

So, if you're already changing out the lowers, you may as well replace the uppers. For most CL members here, it was the uppers that are the first to go, due to the amount of "work" they do - lots of movement and flexing. In my case, they were fine, but they would have worn eventually.

I used Rockauto.com for my parts. They are a great company to deal with and their prices are hard to beat. I also used them for my brake parts.

You should be forewarned that this is not an easy DIY when replacing the ball joints. Even the shop that did the work said it was "a biotch" to do. The ball joint is pressed into the spindle and can't be done easily. In most cases the spindle needs to be removed, but they managed to do it without doing so, with their specialty tools and presses that the average DIY'er wouldn't have.

Lastly, if you decide to do any of this work yourself, you'll need to "pre-load" or index your arms before cinching/tightening everything back up, or you'll be re-doing this job in a short time, due to the stress on the bushings.

lexus600hl

Total $1500 for the front suspension job, including all you described? Wow.. that is a great deal..
I thought I read some where that the lexus dealers charged $6000 or was it $9000? I forgot.
There was another thread here, which showed how to install teflon bushings to existing arms..

roadfrog

Yep. You're right around the 8k dollar mark for Lexus to do this job. You do have the option of doing just the bushings, but for almost the same cost you can do the CA's with the bushings already in place. For me, it was a no-brainer.

lexus600hl

Did you, by any chance, notice country of manufacture for the aftermarket parts? When the part is a safety related part, such as brake discs for example, I dislike buying parts made in INdia or China.
Even if the parts are made in Mexico, I would be some what satisfied..
I still have my LS600 but I don't use it.. So, I don't yet know whether it has this issue.
I do also have a 2010 LS 460L awd, which is making clunking noise in the front left, when I hit a bump at low speed. I assume this is the problem. Since it is under CPO warranty, I am assuming that lexus will fix it. Does anyone know, if this issue is covered by CPO warranty?

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Yes, the control arm bushings are covered under the CPO warranty. I don't know where Lexus/Toyota sources its OE parts from - could be China, India or Mexico and I'm not sure we would know!

lexus600hl

I am not concerned about Lexus OEM parts coming from China/India as long as they are OEM - Toyota would control quality/metals/materials.. but my question was about aftermarket parts from auto stores.. such as Rockauto - or is Rockauto selling OEM? I think I heard of Rockauto being a good company to buy from..

UDel

This is another thread talking me out of a used LS460, way too many extremely expensive issues. It is a little surprising people have put up with it or fine with it and some are relieved after spending over a thousand dollars or several thousand on a extended warranty that they broke even or are ahead from the the problems the car had and the dealership gouging them so much on parts and labor. Whoopee. I would be extremely disappointed and immediately think the car was not properly designed and Lexus should take care of it. You spend all that money for extended warranties for poorly engineered problematic European vehicles, not well engineered Lexus vehicles that should be mostly painless to own. They are getting as bad if not already as bad as the Germans with these suspension, ML amp, and other issues costing thousands to repair. It is not normal at all to have to replace suspension pieces for vehicles with under or around 100K miles, just because some other poorly engineered cars have to have it too does not mean anything or it is normal. The suspension is a design failure on Lexus, owners should not be having this problem or having to pay for it or find ways around it so it is not so expensive, just because it happened under warranty and covered is beside the point, it should not happen and is a very bad sign. Instead of just having it fixed I would be on the phone to Lexus corporate and looking for class action lawsuits, this should have been addressed by now as it is clearly a very expensive problem and pretty painful as a DIY especially when the car continues to make noises after the "repairs".

I had to do something and ended up posting too soon but I did end up quickly test driving a LS and when going over bumps I heard a grinding/groaning noise and sort of a knocking noise and the car felt somewhat loose but I do not really know what they feel like when suspension is perfect, not a good start, seller kept saying how trouble free it would be and was asking top dollar, I said the price would have to be significantly reduced for me to even consider it because it sounds like there is a possible 5 to 6 thousand dollar issue\repair with the suspension, seller balked and just said the noise is normal and just means it may need grease and would not lower price, I just smiled and shook my head and said I wish it was that easy. I have a feeling they were trying to just get rid of it and avoid the bill, it only had 52K miles.

SW17LS

LOL, this is really not a big deal, it's totally overblown. This can be done at a shop for $1,000-$1,500. I had lower control arms replaced on my 2003 ES at about 100k miles, that job was about $1,600 at my independent shop...that was also a common issue and there was no outrage, that cost was way more of a % of the car's cost too. I also replaced the dogbone engine mount on that which was expensive and I would consider it one of the most reliable cars I've ever owned.

Nothing lasts forever, one of the drawbacks to having a car with soft suspension bushings and all is that they aren't as durable as hard urethane bushings, but the car wouldn't ride the same way on those.

Look back through the CL forums, replacing worn suspension components on old Lexus cars is not unusual.

Think about it this way, on your older Lexus cars you would have to do a $1,000 timing belt replacement every 90k miles as preventative maintenance...don't have to do that on an LS460.

If you want a big flagship car, the only one I would buy if I was going to keep it longer than 100k miles is the LS460. Anything else a $1,500 control arm replacement would be a best case scenario lol.

SupraTurbo

Another LS driver here needed to replace the control arms at 60k miles. Lexus cost was nearly $4,000. Not happy. I wouldn't expect this out of an S-class at these miles.

In my experience these newer Lexus cars are not as well built as the '90s even with 300k+ miles.

UDel

People are getting bills and paying a lot more then $1000 to $1500 for suspension issues with the LS and sometimes issues come back quickly or are still not solved, this is not just happening on older/higher mileage LS460s either.

Timing belts are a pain but I got mine done for under $800 at the Toyota dealership for my GS, not having to do a tb change is nice but if there are issues with a timing chain, which does happen, it will be much more expensive to address it.

The 2nd gen GS had ball joint issues, door lock actuator issues, and temp control issues, the ball joint design was supposed to be changed in 2001 and if you did no go with big wheels and lowering you should be okay, I went with a 2001 and did not lower or do big wheels and had no suspension issues for over 100K miles except for squeak going over speed bumps in cold weather, a had a bad door lock actuator and 2 more that sometimes acted up which I refused to pay over $500 each to fix, temp control occasionally made the mice back there racket but only occasionally.

It is disappointing that newer Lexus cars are still having these kind of issues where you have to avoid certain models\certain features that will likely be money pits and having the same basic expensive suspension issues and even door lock actuator issues which I see with 4th gen GS and other model owners are still having and the customers are being gouged to fix these design failures once they are out of warranty when Lexus should deal with it. It is unacceptable for a company like Lexus or any company but especially Lexus that touts quality and reliability above other brands so much to be having on such frequency. A few issues is understandable but when they are the same basic often very expensive issues over and over again the company does not address and dealerships gouge owners for it is very disappointing and unacceptable and not the Lexus we used to know and admire.

SW17LS

You should not take it to Lexus. There is no reason you should be taking a ~10 year old Lexus to the dealer, the cost will break you. Lexus quoted me $4,000 to do the control arms on my old ES, my guy did it for $1,600 with OEM parts...where was my outrage?

As to the ball joints being redesigned on the GS, the control arms were redesigned on the LS in 2011, the vast majority of control arm issues you see are 07-09, early 2010 cars.

Timing belts can be done at Toyota, and the control arms can be done there or at an independent for a huge savings too.

Nothing lasts forever, Lexus and the LS specifically is as reliable as you get, it doesn't mean that they will be problem free forever. When any car gets to be 8+ years old you are going to have some issues.

How was redesigning the control arms in 2011 which dramatically reduced the issue not addressing the problem? Dealerships are really expensive, but Lexus has no control over that they are independent businesses and antitrust laws keep them from being able to price fix.

I've owned Lexus vehicles for 20 years, some until old, some traded when they were young. While I agree Lexus service has gone downhill, and I agree they aren't made as well as they once were, theres no doubt in my mind however that I am driving the most reliable vehicle for sale in its segment. What more can you ask for when it comes to product quality and reliability?

SupraTurbo

There's also no reason why an 7 year old LS with sub-60k miles should need new control arms either. Even if this can be done for $10 at an independent shop, Lexus costs should be quoted.

Precisely. Lexus is aware of the issues in flawed design. Thus in my opinion making this "overblown" issue justified.

Agreed, nothing lasts forever, however key word here is "some". This is not a simple low cost repair and a repair that should be expected on a 4-5 year old 60k mile vehicle. I've had Lexus vehicles that went 300k with still factory tight suspension components.

It did not. 2007-2009 still have this issue. "Addressing the problem" is fixing the design flaw across the whole line.

Agreed. Its still a very reliable vehicle by all means, but certainly not what it used to be.