Anybody had similar problems? 2018 LS500 , car makes dragging/whosing noise when slowly taking off, dealer first though it was brakes dragging,no problems found there ,replaced original tire with new with Dunlop SP Sport Maxx run flats (28,000 miles) noise gone immediately. Must be side wall degraded they said. At 35,000 miles noise back. After tech and tireman test drove and could not find anything, but heard the noise very clearly, they put on a new set of Michelin Primacy MXM4 run flats noise gone immediately again. Now at 48,000 noise back even worse. Michelin says not their tires, Lexus says out of warranty.
I will be replacing tires and not with run flats. Just wondering if anybody has had same problems ?

 

I'm having some similar issues with strange tire wear on my 2018 LS500. The inside sidewall is wearing excessively. There is still plenty of tread left across the full width of the tire, but I have some evidence of a heat ring just on the inside sidewall of all four tires. I have never run the car with underinflated tires and the dealership says that the double-wishbone suspension on the LS500 is prone to this type of tire wear that I have gotten more tire life than most other people. (I got 31k miles on a set of Continental tires with a 50k warranty)

I'm going to try and warranty the tires, but am also frustrated that I will likely have the same problem in another 30k miles since we aren't fixing the root cause.

I think there may be an issue with the suspension geometry on the early LS500s.

 

Have you chekced the alignment?

 

LS500, according to my dealer: negative camber is set for better handling. This causes excessive wear on inner edge of the tires.
13,000 miles on my runflop tires and only 1/16” tread left on the innermost tread.
Maybe a good alignment tech can help with this. Probably have a hard time getting a dealer service dept. to do anything but factory settings.

 

Yes, the car is at the dealership right now. They checked the alignment and everything is just where it's supposed to be. The dealership is telling me that the double wishbone suspension on this car is prone to inner tire wear and that most people are getting 20K miles out of their tires. I don't find this to be an acceptable answer.

 

$1,200 for tires every 20,000 miles is absurd.

 

Completely agree. I still have 6/32" after 30k and 2 alignments on my stock 19" RFTs

 

I think I could live with Runflats if I could get 30,000 miles out of a set. That’s obviously not the case with a lot of us.
Maybe too much town driving and poor alignment is my problem. I’m sure I could do a lot better with coast to coast interstate driving.