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Fed Up With Wheel Bearings!


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Hi everyone.

Ok have an IS200 Sport 2001 82,000 miles.

Had a drumming noise from the front of the car a while back (Jan this year) which I suspected was a wheel bearing.

Took it to Lexus and they confirmed a wheel bearing (OSF) had gone but the quote was too high for me to get it replaced with them at the time. They did advise that this is a specialty job and that another garage may bodge the replacement. Poss they wanted my business or could be fact. Anyhow they stated that they had never had a wheel bearing go on one of these models and surprised one had gone!

Went to another garage not Lexus for a second quote and they confirmed also that OSF bearing had gone and replaced it as a much better quote on 22 Jan 2011. The car had done 79,000 miles at that time. They told me that the wheel bearings on these are not hard to replace and no specialist knowledge or tools required no more than any other car so were happy to go ahead and change the bearing.

Well I now have a noise coming from the front again and suspect a wheel bearing. This time noise seems to be from NSF. Went to Lexus for a service and during their walkround they confirmed that there is a noise suspect NSF but unable to confirm due to tyre noise.

Went back to the original garage where I had the OSF wheel bearing replaced to see if they could diagnose the problem and would you believe it, OSF bearing has gone again not NSF which according to them is ok. So they have changed it again. So this is less than 6 months later and also only 3000 miles since it was changed.

My query is, do you think I have a case to not pay for the replacement bearing but poss labour charge? I am due to pick up the car this weekend.

So I do wonder if:-

The bearing was fitted incorrectly in the first place?

Was it a poor manufactured bearing and faulty on fit?

Anyhow I am losing faith in my Lexus now, all I seem to get is noise from the front and now not convinced if I have another problem causing the bearing to fail on the OSF or that perhaps the left hand bearing is starting to fail also but not enough to diagnose at this time ie not a rough feel to it or noise when spinning wheel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Any advice guys?

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I had an almost identical experience, had a bearing fitted (non lexus), it failed quite soon after and then had it replaced at Lexus. They wouldn't cover the labour but as it was a genuine Lexus part I didn't have to pay for the replacement part.

However they didn't think it was due to poor installation, most likely just a defective part.

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Well good news, they changed the OSF wheel bearing for a second time and no charge! They incorrectly assumed that the NSF was changed last time so changed the OSF this time round due to having a NSF brake caliper sticking last time so it warped the disc so they believed it had heated up the bearing and caused it to fail on that side. Luckily I kept the reciept for the work carried out last time.

So this is now the second OSF bearing so I may well take it to a Lexus dealer to get it checked out once I have covered a few miles so it beds in, just in case they have fitted it incorrectly.

Still get a noise but suspect tyres although it does seem to be NSF which is where the disc brake got hot so do wonder if it has caused some damage to the bearing. But the garage said it was fine just the OSF noisy unlike Lexus who did a quick survey when I had it serviced and they said suspect NSF bearing noisy but cannot isolate during road test due to tyre noise.

Hmm the plot continues and once again, Lexus has stated that the bearings on these cars never go wrong unless abused by another garage not knowing what thay are doing etc. Makes me wonder what history the car has had and I have little faith in the bearings still. Be interesting to know how many other IS200 owners have had bearing problems!!!!!!!!!

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Interesting to read your experience.

I had a OSF bearing replaced by main dealer on my '04 IS at about 62k miles. Within 3k miles it failed MOT on excessive play on the same bearing. Took it back to the dealer who said that the bearings had collapsed inside the unit and that it must have been a faulty one as they hadn't seen that happen very often - replaced it at no charge. They said the bearing comes as a sealed unit so you just replace the whole lot. I've now noticed a light kind of scraping sound like the pad gently swishing over the disc when driving (noticeable at low/town speeds when windows are down and the sound bounces back off walls/buildings) so I'm wondering whether I have a similar issue of caliper sticking and a warped disc as sounds as though pad only catches part of the disc when its rotating?

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