Unprofessional professional

[ambermarine]

Hi  fellow Lexuns

Back in 2013 I acquired my present LS400 mark 4 and as some of you may recall there was a fault on the steering which caused the nearside front tyre to scrub away the outside edge very quickly.

Lexus Glasgow stated there was nothing wrong and said there could be a tyre age issue.

I then did a 600 mile trip to Devon  discovering the tyre had worn very badly I took it to Devonshire motors in Barnstaple who charged me £80  for a Teletremy laser test. I received a nice print out telling me there was nothing wrong.

I then returned to Scotland and put on two new tyres.the car had then done around 22k.

This last week after finding the wear was very bad again after 10k on the tyre I checked out a source for getting to the bottom of this problem .

I took it to Kenneth Brown Ltd Hillington  Glasgow .and he discovered that the toe in was  one degree too much and the camber was set negative.

Perfect formula for what is in the pic.

I contacted Devonshire Motors to point out the error of there readout and the Service Manager retorted they have Professional Technichans .I will let you be the judge of that.

Kenny Brown is a Engineer first and mechanic second and is old school he is a successful motor racing car builder and racer so he does know his game and I would recommend him to anyone with engineering issues .

He was just seeing off a conversion to coil overs on a LS400 were the air sus had failed. 

 

 

[Cotswold Pete]

Someone who is engineer first (or at least thinks like an engineer) and mechanic second is to be trusted more than a vanilla mechanic. 

My problem is  that I got a degree in electronics (did mechanics in year 1), and I get frustrated when I have mechanics querying my thinking, even of they think they know the LS (or any other car inside out and back to front).

The company that did my gear box oil drain and refill were engineers - you could tell by the way they talked.

 

On tyre scrubbing the one thing I have learnt with the LS is that if it pulls either left or right even on a road with a slight camber, you have an alignment issue, though not so sure about the camber and how that impacts the feel of the steering.

At my  last tyre change I had the fronts both toeing out, and the car wandered either to the left or the right depending on camber, so lesson learnt there.

I am thinking of going a bit OCD and buying a tyre depth gauge to be able to spot more quickly this type of problem, especially given the off-road nature of the A46 where I live and it's pot holes within pot holes.

[Chris Skelton]

Tony Bones -of this parish-where are you? - is good at this too .

[Bluesman]

I had exactly the same on my car, I took it to a so called expert with 4 wheel lazer alignment technology but showed he had as much knowledge on using the equipment as my dogs would know.

I left it a few months and then took it to another so called expert same outcome but charged me £80 and told me there was nothing wrong.

With tyres wearing out exactly the same as yours I read a thread on here about the same problem and he took his to a company up in Buckinghamshire who know more about Lexus than Lexus do. He diagnosed exactly the same as yours did the adjustments and hey presto. Cost was about £60.   

 

[Cotswold Pete]

1 hour ago, Bluesman said:

I had exactly the same on my car, I took it to a so called expert with 4 wheel lazer alignment technology but showed he had as much knowledge on using the equipment as my dogs would know.

I left it a few months and then took it to another so called expert same outcome but charged me £80 and told me there was nothing wrong.

With tyres wearing out exactly the same as yours I read a thread on here about the same problem and he took his to a company up in Buckinghamshire who know more about Lexus than Lexus do. He diagnosed exactly the same as yours did the adjustments and hey presto. Cost was about £60.   

 

My Lexus chap takes his cars to Lexus Swindon, so when I had new suspensions parts, a full re-align was £60.  So maybe that is standard Lexus dealer price.  And they should know what they are doing -thank heavens.

[goldtop]

"All the gear, no idea" springs to mind for some of these guys. They can buy the equipment, but if it's a lazy/unskilled person using it, it might was well be switched off.

My LS400 had inner wear on the fronts and would sort of 'wiggle' with some types of pothole. I found the local Hunter-equipped place and the guy did his best, claiming some adjustments wouldn't budge. Oh well. I drove it away and it now had a VERY drastic pull to the left. Absolutely unsafe, drove it back and got him to revert to the original settings.

Then took it to Wheels in Motion: same equipment, but a completely different outcome. Totally sorted.

(I chose WiM as they had some success with the infamous IS Mk1 alignment, which Lexus dealers couldn't diagnose or fix.)

[ambermarine]

Great feedback guys, we are all looking for some expertise that can be relied on when it comes to our Lexus cars and to be brutally honest Lexus are not as good as they think they are as as been proved on this forum numerous times.

With regard to pulling left or right and a off  centre steering wheel non of these symptoms were present which made the problem for me harder to define .

On another issue we have with the Mark 4, I have now decided to bite the bullet and fix it ,I am referring to the blackout scenario we have in the ignition switch.

I reported last year that the loss of instruments and accessories occasionally when tootling along .Recently I have made several trips south to look for a house as we are moving to the Fylde coast and the dreaded blackout  happened twice when it was throwing it down on the M6 .

Those kind of shocks I can do without so I bought a new switch from Lexus at a cost of £96 and will set about fitting it when I have moved and found my screwdriver in the hoard of packed goods.

[The-Acre]

Just out of interest, can you find out roughly how much he charges for the coilover conversion, and how easy it was?  It's useful info for us air suspension owners.

[Bluesman]

3 hours ago, goldtop said:

"All the gear, no idea" springs to mind for some of these guys. They can buy the equipment, but if it's a lazy/unskilled person using it, it might was well be switched off.

My LS400 had inner wear on the fronts and would sort of 'wiggle' with some types of pothole. I found the local Hunter-equipped place and the guy did his best, claiming some adjustments wouldn't budge. Oh well. I drove it away and it now had a VERY drastic pull to the left. Absolutely unsafe, drove it back and got him to revert to the original settings.

Then took it to Wheels in Motion: same equipment, but a completely different outcome. Totally sorted.

(I chose WiM as they had some success with the infamous IS Mk1 alignment, which Lexus dealers couldn't diagnose or fix.)

These are the people I used and they told me that to set the steering and alignment up properly it has to be set  outside the Lexus parameters, hey presto no more excessive tyre wear on the outside. Lexus could do with reading these forums and perhaps learning one or two things..

[ambermarine]

Phil the- acre

I think he would be more than willing to give a quote for the job and his very approachable and informative

As I have no air  sus on  my Mark 4 it would be more in line for you to call him on 0141 882 6757 tell him you got his name off the Lexus owners club.

[needmorecharge]

I can also vouch for Kenny Brown in Glasgow. He has looked after my Lotus and Porsche in the past. Nice guy too!

[The-Acre]

1 hour ago, ambermarine said:

Phil the- acre

I think he would be more than willing to give a quote for the job and his very approachable and informative

As I have no air  sus on  my Mark 4 it would be more in line for you to call him on 0141 882 6757 tell him you got his name off the Lexus owners club.

That's great, thanks.  I don't have a problem with mine but if it should happen, or happen to someone else it would be really useful to get the info from someone who's familiar with the procedure so I may just give him a call.

[WarwickT]

I can vouch for A-line in Dudley. They use Hunter equipment People on the MX-5 and MR-2 forums swear by them. Tarun

[shanra]

Wheels In Motion recommended on Mercedes forums also, it's difficult to get people who know what they are doing. I have a Mercedes C124 E220 (the last properly built Mercedes) and I have found a mechanic who I can trust locally, I liked him as when I rang with some problems he was prepared to talk for 15 minutes on the phone honestly about them, he then fixed them and looking over the car found stuff that had been missed on a £180 car inspection!

Maybe I'm just getting old but I seem to come across people in all walks of life who just are not any good at their jobs.

[Malc]

.......  I mentioned this before with Computer Wheel Alignment ............ ( is it the same thing ? Caster, Camber, Toe and computer pretty colours diagrammatic printout ) Treadmark Tyres at Canterbury Kent.  Had it done twice now, the last in June 2015 after I had a new UCA fitted, total cost incl vat £34.95.

The first time was when I bought the car when I knew it had to be done following re-instatement of ordinary set-up after coilovers and DHP style changed back to original......... you all know I bought the car off ACLex on here .....  June 2011 and about 126k miles I think

The cost this second time around was less than the first from Treadmark, they have presumably depreciated the kit by now and feel they can charge a little less than others for an expert job.  ..........  and their staff do know how to use it properly. The first time the kit was brand new, very expensive and they had just the one skilled operative..........  I had to wait a few days for him to become available.

So if in Canterbury and you need it done !

Malc

 

 

 

 

 

[Bluesman]

4 hours ago, shanra said:

Wheels In Motion recommended on Mercedes forums also, it's difficult to get people who know what they are doing. I have a Mercedes C124 E220 (the last properly built Mercedes) and I have found a mechanic who I can trust locally, I liked him as when I rang with some problems he was prepared to talk for 15 minutes on the phone honestly about them, he then fixed them and looking over the car found stuff that had been missed on a £180 car inspection!

Maybe I'm just getting old but I seem to come across people in all walks of life who just are not any good at their jobs.

Never a more truer word spoken, as another member said "all the gear and no idea" Mike.

[Chris Skelton]

My mention of Tony Bones.....IS 'Wheels in Motion'. Good thorough job (5%, tony, O.K.? (-:)  )

[cleverdick]

The esteemed John Watkinson, who's well-known in serious audio engineering circles, once stated that the term 'professional' simply means that you get paid for the job.  It does not necessarily allude to any standard of excellence.

I also had a suspension alignment issue on my '94 LS.  I took it to a local Rolls-Royce mechanic (whose Pro-Cut lathe I'd been glad of in the past), and was astounded when, comparing the wheelbases on each side, he measured from stud-to-stud which - obviously - was completely meaningless.  His assistant compounded the issue when, on discussing the rotation of one end of a coil spring WRT the other under load, talked in millimetres instead of degrees of rotation - without specifying the radius!  (The case in point was the static twisting force on the lower damper bush, which can occur if the strut is assembled without the special service tool.)  Put simply, they both had no idea (and charged me for the privilege of their ignorance)!

I figured it out myself in the end.  The cause was a lower control arm bush that hadn't been centrally fitted.  I commissioned my local Toyota independent to do the realignment and the car drives as true as the day it was made.