Droning noise has been gradually getting worse, sounds like an old bus.

[Stanwithaplan]

Hi All, 

The Golden Goddess sounds like a bus between 60-100kph. As I speed up it gets louder and same on deceleration. Garage thought it was front bearings, but it isn't. So now they are removing the drive shaft and getting it tested. Has anyone else had a similar problem? Any advice will be appreciated please:o)

 

[Supafly]

Have the tyres been checked for abnormal wear? can happen when suspension components are worn. I've had this due to worn shocks on a volvo, the tyres were cupped on the outer edges and caused the same noise.

Diff bearings?

Are the garage able to run it with the car raised safely to check drivetrain components?

I've read about the cv joints causing this issue, as well as prop shaft bearing (not sure if our cars have a prop bearing)

At those speeds it should be something fairly easy to diagnose... fingers crossed for you 🙂

[Malc1]

Stan no never had such issues with any of my 3 x  Ls400s over the years 

Sounds impossible to be on an Ls400 tbh .......  surely must be summat not so dreadful as what your garage is testing for 

so where are you in Kent ?

I'm Sheppey and if you're close maybe i could have a listen for you too

Malc

[Stanwithaplan]

Thanks for the help Superfly and Malc. Unfortunately the car with the issue is in Dubai. My local indy, have tried their best but I can see they have run out of ideas. So I spoke with Lexus.ae today, the first contact said they wont look at imports ("they are different, we don't have the tools"). I laughed and I escalated and got a call back. They will look at it next week, so fingers crossed we will get to the bottom of it.

[DavidCM]

When I first read the title of this thread,I thought that the wife on back seat jokes were about to start.....

[BigBoomer]

Likely to be the drive shaft centre bearing or else engine/gearbox mounts.

[Malc1]

if it's simply the mounts, which sounds very plausible tbh .  then apart from finding the parts availability it should be a relatively simple and cost effective job ....  that's if they are capable of doing it of course !

Don't Amayama supply from the UAE and the USA too ?

Malc

[Supafly]

Any update on this?

[Stanwithaplan]

Hi Gents, 

Thanks for all your suggestions, much appreciated. 

My update; Lexus Dubai, finally agreed to add me and my car to their system, so I can order parts etc from them ( its a bit of a closed market normally). I paid them to do an inspection and provide a report. It said 4x bearings and differential bushes, along with an o-ring to fix the coolant leak were required (and confirmed the indy had not fitted new bearing to the front as they had promised me ...grrr!). Lexus also recommended all 4 brake backing plates were replaced soon, but not urgent.

I've had all the work done by them, it was completed the night before I flew home (yesterday), so I was only able to do a short test drive in rush hour traffic. She's running very smoothly, the droning noise is now very quiet but not gone completely. So I will work through all of your suggestions when I next go back. BTW I haven't replaced the engine mounts and was aware they would probably need doing soon, but I hadn't thought about them in connection to solving this problem.

[BigBoomer]

When the engine/gearbox mounts go, there can be a more direct engine/gearbox to chassis coupling which leads to greater transmission of vibration to the chassis.
Since the LSes are so quiet, even a minor change in the state of the mounts can cause this.
One of the guys on the US forum complained of an increase in engine noise in his LS430 and when he swapped out his engine mounts there was very little rubber left in them and on one side the mount had completely separated.

[Stanwithaplan]

Thanks George, I'm definitely going to look into this when I go back.