Have a bit of a problem at the moment in that I'm out of the country on business and my wife has just taken the car (99 is200) for a pre mot.
The garage have said that it'll fail due to excess play in the "rear suspension bushes". Apparently the guy did doe about 18 months ago and it is a real pig og a job and the parts themseslves cost about £300 from Lexus.

Now as I can't get to look at the car until the weekend and have no idea of the set up on the rears or even which bushes he's referring to I'd like to ask if anyone can shed any light on this.

1. Any idea what bushes he's talking about? Are there a few possibilities?
2. Is there a picutre / diagram (such as epc or workshop manual) available on line somehwere?
3. Anybody done any similar jobs and can testify to ease / difficulty of job?
4. Finally £300 seems a bit steep. Is it likely to be a complete suspension arm or can I not get replacements? Ideally some polyurethane bushes etc.

Any help would be much appreciated.

I'm hoping I can clue myslef up a bit before I take a look under the car.

Cheers.

Just found the owners manual on the following link.

www.bahamutcars.com/workshop/IS_98-05/index.html

It looks like the bushes are all parts of the various arms etc.

Anyone know of aftermarket poly bushes from anyone??

TRD do them

Thanks for the reply.
Do you sell them? had a look on your website and I can't see them on there.

Rough idea on supply cost??

TM

Well, I've now had a chance to get under the car and have a look.

The bushes that have excessive play are the ones at the outer ends of the No.2 lower suspension arm. These are the ones that have the cam plate / bolt arrangement for some rear wheel alignment facility.

The fensport website does not list this bush and I am currently waiting for a call back from my local lexus dealer.

Fensport believe I'll have to change the entire cast hub - surely this can not be!! And as they've gone on both sides then that'll be
1) A massive cost in parts alone.
2) One hell of a job.

Surely no manufacturer would have designed an assembly where an entire hub would be scrapped due to one small bushing.
Is there anybody who has experience of these bushes going before?
Is there a possiblity of replacing the bush with machined parts or some sort of rose joint??

Hope someone can help on this as I am currently gobsmacked to think I may have to replace the two rear hubs.

Any help /advice much appreciated.

hi tony do u have a pic/drawing of the offending item??

OK, gave it my best shot. If it doesn't come out then I can email to anyone.



After speaking to Lexus it now looks like my fears are confirmed and the bush is part of the stub axle. It's going to be around £300 to sort the pair plus the cost of new bearings as it's all to easy to damage the old one getting them out apparently.
The bush in question sits at the outer end of No.2 lower suspnesion arm and is positioned at the rear of the hub - just follow the dotted line from the end of the arm on the diagram.

To say I'm browned off is an understatement, I don't really see why you'd need to buy a hub and go through the ar$se ache of changing them. A poly type bush would do just as good.

If anyone has solved this without the new hub method then please get in touch.

Hi, sorry to jump in on your post but I'm just back from my local garage with a similar problem on my MK2 gs300. I have been informed that its going to cost £390 each side for the parts alone unless I can find bushes from somewhere! Any help finding new bushes would be greatly appreciated.

Andrew

Did anyone find a place to buy the bushes?

Come on, Dave.....

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You say it's the bushes, could it not be the bearings?

J

My car was handling badly i went to get the geometry done. On the second attempt for the geometry the technician advised me about the bushes so i thought i would get them fixed and go for the 3rd time for the geom. After alot of digging i found the links below, these are no use to me at the mo as it turned out my bushes are not that bad after all! A lot of messing about i think....

If your enter the car details and select rear.

http://www.fulcrumsuspensions.com.au/fulcrumCat/

I think this is the part number. SPF2785K you will find many others

Also you can get the bushes from the below very shortly, if you phone them up you can ask to be added to the emailing list for when the is200 bushes arrive. Apparently this firm has stripped an is200 and made poly bushes to fit.

http://www.priracing.com/section.php/291/1/is

I hope this info will be useful to someone who does have genuine worn bushes...

Regards,

Abbas

Well I'm happy to announce that the whole issue is now solved.
I'm not happy about the @rse ache involved in everything though.

It was definitely the bushes gone and not any bearings. You could see the movement when under the car and when moving the wheel up & down. The rubber of the bush had come detached from the hub casting.

Anyway, no other option than to buy a pair of hubs from Lexus or rear stub axles as they call them. £280 in parts then booked into my trusted local garage. Speaking to the mechanic he said it was a nightmare, most bolts were seized, some of the smaller ones broke and had to be drilled out. I'd been told that the old wheel bearings would pull out of the old hubs by Lexus. This was not possible without risking damage to the bearings so a new set was bought to go in the new hubs (£100 / pair), when everything was apart it was noticed the hand brake shoes were on the way out so £30 for a new pair.

the mechanic had estimated a price before I gave him the car and after a couple of days I gave him a ring - he was not a happy man!!
Anyway long story short - he had the car all week (even had to do some welding on the brake plates as they'd corroded to a weak level) and my wife picked it up this monday and was greeted with a bill for ..........£420. Now this includes the wheel bearings, the brake shoes and an MOT. In all that seems a good price for the work involved. i dread to think what Lexus would have charged. Pat on the back to to the guy for honouring the estimate we spoke about.

So, we got there in the end but I cant help thinking what a stupid idea it is to need to change the hubs when a suspension bush gives up the ghost. The whole lot could have been done much easier if bushes were available to be changed individually.
I can see a few people being caught out with stuff like this as the cars become older and cheaper. I'd always fancied a sub £1000 LS400 as a daily driver but I have my doubts now.
Just hope the polybush guys get on the case and look into making a kit for them.

Ahhh well,

TM

do u mean the backing plate behind the discs ???

Yes, they'd rusted a bit thin around some mounting holes apparently. Can't say much more as I didn't see them.

Hope no one thought he'd welded the discs cos they were a bit thin!!!

TM

Same problem with the GS and LS models, but you can order the bushes separately as polyurethane versions from the US of A. Due to many people running older LS400s in the US of A, there are lots and lots of ways to maintain a LS400 without paying Lexus money for parts.

In fact, perhaps you can get the IS bushes from there too (given that the IS300 is sold there).

hi mate i have the same problem managed to get hold of some from a salvage ill have a look if he has any more