edlexus1

Car drives perfectly straight with no weirdness over bumps and mechanic said today no leaks. All that said would I notice a significant difference with a new set of KYBs? Am I missing more joy by not spending the dough to get new shocks? Or do you know for sure when you need them?

LeX2K

New struts would tighten up the ride/handling you'd notice it right away. Lexus has mastered the art of struts wearing gracefully they simply get softer and softer, or looser and looser depending on how you look at. Until the point they are no longer keeping the tires planted on the road.

If it was my car and the ride was still good with no crashing over bumps I'd leave well enough alone.

edlexus1

Was a fine investment. Will watch out for shock weirdness before spending.

bleudabadi

I bought my RX with just over 200k and took it straight to my Toyota/Lexus specialist to look over. He said the suspension is going… but not gone (even though it made noise going over bumps. He said it will get obnoxiously annoying before it really NEEDS to be done (and told me it was about a $1,600 job to do the complete suspension replacement)… I was rear-ended by a Prius a few weeks ago and her insurance paid just over $2k to have everything fixed perfectly (in addition to the $3,500 they gave me for the hassle of the accident) but perfect functionality was restored for less than $300 (don’t need to repaint a scratched bumper cover and other stuff was done differently) so I’d like to take the extra income and put it towards suspension replacement so I’m looking into it now.


One thing I need to research is they say on this forum that if you change the struts and springs that the suspension gets stiff… I like it nice and soft so I need to see how to avoid that because most struts seem to come with springs

Cherish

Hi, everyone!
I am planing to buy KYB stouts.for 4 coners, after read several thread here.
Can some give the model number, alse where to buy them, shall I buy them from ebay $417 for 4?
Also shall I prepare some other parts , if I bring them to a garage?
Also no one mention the dusk cover for strut, or boot, could you please give me some suggestion?

Felix

If your dust covers are torn/ripped/damaged, I replace them. Get a pr of the rear spring seats & If you need strut mounts, get a pr of the Toyota ones, don't use the KYB strut mounts. More then likely your strut mounts are good as my were...

MattRX

If your strut mount bearings didn't explode or clunk before, just reuse them or if you swap them out, keep the old ones as spares. The originals from my RX (almost 230k miles) are currently in my 2002 Highlander to replace the KYB ones after I got new OEM bearings for my RX. As Felix mentioned, the KYB bearings are crap and will not hold up.

https://www.toyotanation.com/threads...#post-14633037

^ There's all the part numbers you will need for your struts

Cherish

Thank you for your suggestion!
Will try to get it done like this>

Cherish

Thank you for your link. I just realized mine is 2008 rx 350 AWD , 135,000 miles. The stuts were oil leaking or even dried. 2 of the dust cover are worn out.
Does those parts from highlander also good for this model?

Cherish

Just changed 1,3,5 spark plus an hour ago. It was funny, even the code reader told me #1,#2 need to be repared. But I got so lucky th yellow engine light disapeared!!!
A mercanic told me the code shows there are 2 coils need to be changed! I guess I just save my car.

MattRX

Yes the strut boots are identical. My 2008 RX has a lot of Highlander parts on it for ex: steering rack, rear sway bar, strut boots, floor mats. I have a 2002 Highlander as well and most of the parts just swap between the two cars. 2004-2007 Highlander and 2004-2009 RX are sister cars, some 2001-2003 parts will fit as well (incl the strut boots), but more care has to be taken into confirming those parts can work. If you ever have any questions about using 2001-2003 Highlander parts, just shoot me a PM

Cherish

Great! Your experience is so valuable!