ghuns

The passenger side rear wheel bearing in my wife's RX350 has been growling for a while. I have been crazy busy at work, so I kept putting it off. We slowed down a little so I ordered an SKF from Amazon and knew it was arriving today. I left work early, changed clothes, cleaned up my garage, organized tools, ready to start. Got the anti theft lug key out of the car and went to break the special lug nut loose, CRACK...



And to top it off, some of the spline from the wrench was stuck in the lug nut.

Well, that sucks. I called the dealer to see if the wife could swing by on her way home from work and pick up a new one. Nope. The don't sell them. You have to buy from the company that manufactures them. I have a couple friends with RXs, I asked what the odds were we had the same one. There are 12 different ones made for Lexus, so odds aren't great. The service manager said if I brought it right away, he'd remove the 4 special lugs and replace them with regular ones. The dealer is 45 minutes away, but I didn't have much choice. So off I went.

Our RX is 10 years old and has 175K miles. I didn't buy it from the dealer. I don't take it to dealer to have it worked on. But they treated me like I just dropped 50 grand on a new one. I was in and out in 15 minutes with a bill for $16. Most of that 15 minutes was the tech digging the broken piece out of the lug nut.

The wheel bearing went very easy. Hardest part was un-staking the nut. I didn't have a 30mm deep, 12 point socket, but my 1-3/16 fit fine. Popped the bearing assy right out with a slide hammer, scrubbed the mounting surface with scotchbrite and had the new one installed in no time.

It's a pretty easy DIY if you have the tools. And if you have the anti theft lug nuts, think about ditching them unless you live in a seriously shady neighborhood. If that socket fails when you're alongside of the road trying to fix a flat, you'll be SOL.

05RX330AWD

At the end of the day, a DIY with a happy ending is priceless.

DennisMik

My RX didn't have the locking lugs on it when I bought it (used). But my wife's IS250 did. I took those locking ligs off and put regular ones on as soon as I discovered the car had them.

jenright

Hey folks, I'm getting ready to do my first rear bearing this weekend on my 2005 RX330. Got the bearing online but it didn't come with a nut.

Will I be able to reuse the old nut or do I need a new one? Dealer wants $20 for a new one.

ghuns

I reused both of mine. But I ground a special punch to unstake them. It's a real pain. The nut is very soft and if you don't unstake it completely, the threads get really beat up.

I would also advise you replace both of them. I did my passenger side, it was the only one making noise. The driver's side started growling within a month.