Real Serious Steering Wheel Vibration

[Bluebird19799]

Car has a nasty steering wheel vibration at about 50 mph but clears a a lot but not totally over 65 mph! Any ideas? Feels way to serious to b wheel balancing

[ahmedali44]

Wheel balance @ tracking is seriously out

[lewis gibbo]

Does it happen when you brake?

[ChrisIS200SportTTE]

What car are we talking about here?

IS200?

First thing to check would be balancing/alignment. If it's not that then all I'm going to say is good luck! I tire of steering wobble on the IS! On my old 200 I chased and chased the steering vibration, these are the parts I replaced. Every time I replaced something it got a little better.

Front brake discs

Front brake pads

New front callipers

New lower ball joints

New lower control arm bushes

New tyres

New wheels

4 different weight of wheel nuts

4 wheel laser alighnment done by WIM

Road forced balanced the wheels

Next would've been track rods/track rod ends but I got it to a point where it didn't really wobble anymore only very occasionally!

[bobbyc]

What a list of work that is Chris it must have cost a fortune and taken ages

[Stuno1]

Sounds like wheel allignment fella. Get aq 4 wheel laser allignment done.

If it shakes under braking most likely a warped disc. Shouldnt be too bad. usually easly sorted.

Stu

[Bluebird19799]

Still wobbles on light braking but seems to get better under heavy braking

[lewis gibbo]

Same as mine mate think it's a warped disk or a Naff caliper

[Stuno1]

What have you had looked at?

[ChrisIS200SportTTE]

Sounds like wheel allignment fella. Get aq 4 wheel laser allignment done.

If it shakes under braking most likely a warped disc. Shouldnt be too bad. usually easly sorted.

Stu

Agreed it does sound like a balancing alignment problem but one thing I've learnt about the 200/300 is that a steering wheel wobble is very rarely balancing/alighnment.

It's a real weakness of a great car IMO. On here and other clubs this is one of the biggest complaints, cannot fix the steering wobble.... Normally it's a combination of little things such as slightly bent rim + slightly worn control arm bushing + slightly seizing calliper = massive steering wheel wobble or any combination of minor faults. It really is annoying!!!

My 300 has just started doing it now also, can't be bothered to chase it and chase it like I did in the 200, I'll wait till it gets really bad then do something about it!

[Bluebird19799]

Avnet looked at anything yet! Really didn't fancy pumping money into things without seeking some advice! I was really hoping that it was a lazy calliper! But it's got to the point now wer it needs looking at! Don't notice it at all around town but unfortunately I need to do about 8 mile of duel carriage way driving bk an for work, an then it's really grim

[j200hew]

It sounds like you mite have an out of shape tyre on the front of the car mate try moving the back wheel to the front if the tyres are all same size .

[ChrisIS200SportTTE]

Avnet looked at anything yet! Really didn't fancy pumping money into things without seeking some advice! I was really hoping that it was a lazy calliper! But it's got to the point now wer it needs looking at! Don't notice it at all around town but unfortunately I need to do about 8 mile of duel carriage way driving bk an for work, an then it's really grim

Yep same for me mate. It's perfect up to 55mph (same story on the 200 as well) then after that it's horrible :(

With all due respect to the poster above I'd be amazed if it's something as simple as a out if round tyre. Just do a little research across other Lexus forums and you'll see that literally hundreds and hundreds if not thousands and thousands of people have chased the steering wheel wobble on the 200/300.

[petayV8]

mine was a seized caliper and was severe wobble obviously. This resulted in the disc getting warped slightly which i blame my slight and rare wobble on.

[j200hew]

I work in the Tyre industry and have loads of people come in with this type of problem on all makes of car inside edge of Tyre's normally out of shape or with what they call heel an toe... put new Tyre's on the car that solves the problem. By putting the rear Tyre's on the front would eliminate this problem if Tyre's in good condition.

[ChrisIS200SportTTE]

I work in the Tyre industry and have loads of people come in with this type of problem on all makes of car inside edge of Tyre's normally out of shape or with what they call heel an toe... put new Tyre's on the car that solves the problem. By putting the rear Tyre's on the front would eliminate this problem if Tyre's in good condition.

I have no doubt mate you see this a lot. And I will completely agree with you that that's where you should start and also alignment and balancing.

Not trying to sound cocky here but I bet none of that fixes it. Like I said I've been through this more than most and I'm not alone. Nearly every 200/300 owner complains of some sort if steering wheel wobble that isn't able to be fixed by alignment, balancing or new wheels/tyres.

First thing I did was balance and 4 wheel laser alignment done by WIM on their hunter machine. No difference. Then I bought 4 new wheels and tyres, no difference. That's when I started going down the route of suspension parts and brakes. That was on my IS200.

My IS300 has just started doing it also and the first thing I did was put another set of wheels, tyres on (4 brand new tyres, Toyo proxies) all laser aligned and road forced balanced...guess what.... No difference!

[LexIS200Sport]

Chris, does the problem start at a certain mileage? Or is that pot luck too?

[ChrisIS200SportTTE]

Seems pot luck. My 200 started doing it at 93k. My 300 is starting to do it at 78k :(