Uneven tyre wear and bushes

Rxv667 · November 20, 2022

Hi Guys

I have a 2014 Lexus IS300H Premier with 24,000 miles on the clock. It has the standard 18 inch alloys with different tyre sizes for the rear and front.

I had a 4 wheel hunter laser alignment done 12 months ago by a local place not because of tyre wear or anything else, i do this when i purchase a car.

Anyway i went for a MOT yesterday and all 4 tyres are wearing out unevenly. The rears are wearing out on the inner edges and the fronts are wearing out on the outer edges. The tyre pressue is checked by me every few weeks.

I have done many searches and apparently its an issue with the way Lexus has designed the suspension. The bushes were all fine on the MOT.

What bushes do i need to replace to fix this issue and what do i tell the tyre alignment guys in what settings to use for the camber/toe or whatever it is?

Secondly i now have to replace all 4 tyres but can i use the same tyres for all 4 wheels rather than have 2 different sizes front and rear? If i can use the same tyre size what size do you reccomend, i dont mind a bit more comfort, i only use my car for work which is a 4 mile journey in town, im not fussed about handling or looks, i would rather have more comfort. I dont drive fast or in anger,i normally pootle about at 30mph. I would prefer a larger profile for more comfort.

rayaans · November 20, 2022

Nothing wrong.

Its designed this way and you will get inner wear on the rears and outer wear on the fronts.

You shouldn't use the same tyres front and rear on the 18" wheels are the wheels are different widths.

You can alternatively change to 17" wheels on the Premier which are a square setup

Mr_Groundhog · November 25, 2022

That means on the 17-inch wheels you can swap fronts and rears after a few thousand miles, no?

Bluemarlin · November 25, 2022

21 minutes ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

That means on the 17-inch wheels you can swap fronts and rears after a few thousand miles, no?

If they're the same then I would think so.

Personally, I've never understood the wheel rotation thing to get even wear across all four tyres, as I'd rather be replacing 2 tyres at a time than the cost of replacing all four in one go.

rayaans · November 25, 2022

36 minutes ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

That means on the 17-inch wheels you can swap fronts and rears after a few thousand miles, no?

Yes as they are the same size front and back.

As mentioned though it is better to atleast have 2 tyres at 6mm and 2 tyres at 3mm than having all 4 tyres at 3.5mm

Digifant · December 1, 2022

I think I even seen in owners manual a note where Lexus recommends to change front tyres with sides at every oil change to make less tyre wear problem.

fergie · December 7, 2022

I have a 60,000 mile Lexus 300h, I am getting approximately 12,000 miles on a tyre before it needs replacing, I have Bridgestone S001 R17. Is this normal or should I change the make of the tyre

Mr_Groundhog · January 10, 2023

As said in another thread, because of all this I have sourced in the lower front arm bushings of the Lexus GS-F (supposedly stiffer but still OEM and compatible) and currently looking for a good garage that would fit them + wheel align... I think I have found one, but not sure yet. Most don't want to install anything you bring to them!

What did you end up doing @Rxv667 ?

Rxv667 · January 10, 2023

Hi,

To be honest i have been looking at 17" alloys for a bit more comort. I came across some adjustable arms for the rear, i think i read this on some American forum. Did not look into it any further.......will when i get a chance.

Please do keep us updated with how you get on with the GS-F bushings.

Mr_Groundhog · January 11, 2023

On 1/10/2023 at 3:05 PM, Rxv667 said:

Hi,

To be honest i have been looking at 17" alloys for a bit more comort. I came across some adjustable arms for the rear, i think i read this on some American forum. Did not look into it any further.......will when i get a chance.

Please do keep us updated with how you get on with the GS-F bushings.

Thanks!
I ordered the GS-F bushings and they should arrive end of the month from Japan.... in the meantime I booked the car at the garage early Feb... fingers crossed.
Will report back.
I think I saw the adjustable parts for the rear but they were quite pricey.... upwards of 300 USD, and I'm spending quite a bit of money on this car as it is (I ended up buying one that was slightly above my budget).... but would be very curious to hear how it goes if you do fit them.

brucetan · February 9

Hi, I own a 2013 lexus IS 300h

Where did you order your bushing? would like to get those replaced too.

Spock66 · February 9

On 12/1/2022 at 11:05 PM, Digifant said:

I think I even seen in owners manual a note where Lexus recommends to change front tyres with sides at every oil change to make less tyre wear problem.

That's in the manual for just about every car I have owned, but it's never done as part of the service and something I have never done.

I think the only advantage may be if you are a low mileage driver and don't want to end up changing tyres because they are aged and cracked rather than worn.

wharfhouse · February 10

On 2/9/2024 at 7:34 AM, Spock66 said:

That's in the manual for just about every car I have owned, but it's never done as part of the service and something I have never done.

I think the only advantage may be if you are a low mileage driver and don't want to end up changing tyres because they are aged and cracked rather than worn.

I have never rotated tyres - I do around 15k miles a year and have 17" wheels. There is slight inner wear at the rears and slight outer wear on the fronts which is as designed setup for rear wheel drive cars (have had the same on many other cars). I generally replace tyres when they are at the tread wear indicator (3mm) around the centre main tread but at that point the rear inner wear and front outer wear still isn't excessive. I have now done 143k miles in the car and the wear patterns have been consistent over all of that time. Also consistent is tyre replacements over that time. I always replace the rears every 20k miles and the fronts every 40k miles.

Mr_Groundhog · February 10

On 2/9/2024 at 1:54 AM, brucetan said:

Hi, I own a 2013 lexus IS 300h
Where did you order your bushing? would like to get those replaced too.

Hi there, I got them in Amayama and they didn't take long to arrive. I'm pretty sure you can also get them from Megazip.

In this video you can see the right Lexus/Toyota part numbers to order 🙂

matt8 · February 11

On 1/11/2023 at 4:22 PM, Mr_Groundhog said:

Thanks!
I ordered the GS-F bushings and they should arrive end of the month from Japan.... in the meantime I booked the car at the garage early Feb... fingers crossed.
Will report back.
I think I saw the adjustable parts for the rear but they were quite pricey.... upwards of 300 USD, and I'm spending quite a bit of money on this car as it is (I ended up buying one that was slightly above my budget).... but would be very curious to hear how it goes if you do fit them.

Great! Keep us posted on how it goes. What date are you booked in)

Mr_Groundhog · February 11

8 hours ago, matt8 said:

Great! Keep us posted on how it goes. What date are you booked in)

Haha, that was last year! 😀 The bushes got fitted just fine and the car's steering felt a bit firmer and tighter in a good way. I also had the toe corrected through alignment and so far after a whole year had not problem with uneven tyre wear...

matt8 · February 11

46 minutes ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

Haha, that was last year! 😀 The bushes got fitted just fine and the car's steering felt a bit firmer and tighter in a good way. I also had the toe corrected through alignment and so far after a whole year had not problem with uneven tyre wear...

Oh! Misreading the date!

Glad it was a good outcome. Those bushings seem easy to fit in that video. Was it simply changing those, toe correction and done? How much labour were you charged at the garage for fitting the bushings?

Which tyre tracking did you go for out of interest?

Mr_Groundhog · February 15

On 2/11/2024 at 8:50 PM, matt8 said:

Those bushings seem easy to fit in that video. Was it simply changing those, toe correction and done? How much labour were you charged at the garage for fitting the bushings?

Which tyre tracking did you go for out of interest?

I found a good garage in my region with Hunter alignment that was willing to do it (not all of them do, when you offer to supply the parts b/c they don't get a cut, which is shortsighted as they didn't get my business in the end), and they've been my garage of choice for this type of stuff since (apart from annual service which i do at the dealer to keep Lexus Relax going).

They charged for the labour of fitting the bushings and the alignment and everyone was happy: 1.5 hours (at 85 quid per hour) and a 100 for alignment plus vat were 273 quid in total. This was in January 2023.

I'm leaving you an image of the most recent specs I got from them a few weeks ago (the image shows the before and after) when i went for alignment. I hope it helps.

matt8 · June 4

On 2/15/2024 at 11:19 AM, Mr_Groundhog said:

I found a good garage in my region with Hunter alignment that was willing to do it (not all of them do, when you offer to supply the parts b/c they don't get a cut, which is shortsighted as they didn't get my business in the end), and they've been my garage of choice for this type of stuff since (apart from annual service which i do at the dealer to keep Lexus Relax going).

They charged for the labour of fitting the bushings and the alignment and everyone was happy: 1.5 hours (at 85 quid per hour) and a 100 for alignment plus vat were 273 quid in total. This was in January 2023.

I'm leaving you an image of the most recent specs I got from them a few weeks ago (the image shows the before and after) when i went for alignment. I hope it helps.

Hi @Mr_Groundhog

How's your car doing nearly 18 months on?

I am tempted to do this for my car still.

I've looked at the video you posted. Parts are 48076-24010 and 48075-24010.

One only needs to do the front right? There is nothing to do on the rear?

Mr_Groundhog · June 12

On 6/4/2024 at 3:13 PM, matt8 said:

Hi @Mr_Groundhog

How's your car doing nearly 18 months on?

I am tempted to do this for my car still.

I've looked at the video you posted. Parts are 48076-24010 and 48075-24010.

One only needs to do the front right? There is nothing to do on the rear?

Hey there
the car is fine, feels all right, I remember when i did the front bushings the steering felt a bit more connected to the tarmac and a bit less "floaty" but dont expect radical change
what i can say is that the tyre wear issue isn't happening. I have not measured accurately but it looks like they're wearing evenly. If I remember to measure with the thread depth gauge I will update the post!

On the rear, there isnt' much to do unless you install camber arms to correct camber, but what i read is that the uneven tyre wear issue was mostly on the front tyres.