Rear wheel wobble woes

[KC_TypeR]

Hi all, our 2011 Lexus IS250 has recently developed a wobbly wheel, particularly noticeable (visually) at 40mph+. Only on the offside rear, NS is fine.

It does have 20mm hubcentric spacers on the rears but I have removed them and re-tightened them along with the wheel lugs and they seem fine. I have also tried to shake the wheel while on stands to see if it was a faulty wheel bearing but seems tight with no vertical or lateral movement.

I have taken the car two indy garages now and they have no clue. One garage noticed the entire rear hub was fairly new (1-2 yrs) after a possible minor crash by previous owner(no paperwork unfortunately). I've been under the car and the subframe looks straight though.

Amy ideas anyone? I'm stumped. I suspected it might be suspension related rather than brakes or wheel now? My next step was to take it to a wheel alignment place and see whether it could be worn bushings or similar.

[sunbeam alpine]

Have you tried swapping wheels around to see if the wobble moves?

[KC_TypeR]

Yes, swapping the wheel still has same problem on OS rear. Other side is fine, so ruling out wheel and tyre.

sunbeam alpine said:

Have you tried swapping wheels around to see if the wobble moves?

[Matt_E_Mulsion]

If it's only just started then I wouldn't look for 'old damage'.

Like another poster said, try swapping the wheels round. Don't discount the tyre going out of round too, particularly if its worn.

[samoht]

Does it still wobble if you remove the spacers from both rear wheels?

What sort of frequency and amplitude is the wobble? How are you seeing it at 40mph, a bystander or in the wing mirror? Is it an eccentric wobble or a diagonal in/out movement?

edit - too slow!

[KC_TypeR]

Wobble can be seen from behind following in another car and also driving side-by-side.

Not a huge amount of wobble to be honest and driving the car, I can't feel anything different.

The tyre is only a few months old. I couldn't feel any noticeable bumps on the tyre itself.

I did torque the spacer bolts and wheel lugs the other day and they were looser than they should have been, can they work themselves loose?

[texaxile]

Torque everything up and double check, maybe jack the rear of the car up (remember safety first etc) and spin the rear wheels up, look from the underneath to see if there's anything obvious causing it.

Last time I had rear wheel wobble on one side was a very slightly bent hub, caused by ttting a kerb, however it did muller the wheel in the process. If you car has wheel studs then not sure, but would a slightly bent stud cause this kind of issue perhaps?.

[KC_TypeR]

The missus proclaims innocence regarding kerbing...

I have a spare set of wheel nuts waiting to go on as soon as the wheels are repainted. I'll try putting this new set on and see if it makes any difference. Thanks

texaxile said:

Torque everything up and double check, maybe jack the rear of the car up (remember safety first etc) and spin the rear wheels up, look from the underneath to see if there's anything obvious causing it.

Last time I had rear wheel wobble on one side was a very slightly bent hub, caused by ttting a kerb, however it did muller the wheel in the process. If you car has wheel studs then not sure, but would a slightly bent stud cause this kind of issue perhaps?.

[KC_TypeR]

Hmmm having some further online research, it could be wheel spacer related. I've run spacers on nearly all my cars and never had any issues so ruled it out.

I'll try swapping the spacers round and see if it helps.

[Matt_E_Mulsion]

Is the spacer definitely 100% central???

[samoht]

Remove the spacers and try the car without them, i.e. in stock form.

[KC_TypeR]

Update here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

TLDR: The cheap spacers I bought sheared their lugs off!

[samoht]

samoht said:

Does it still wobble if you remove the spacers from both rear wheels?

samoht said:

Remove the spacers and try the car without them, i.e. in stock form.

KC_TypeR said:

The cheap spacers I bought sheared their lugs off!

I don't want to say I told you so ;-)

But I'd suggest this lesson. If you have a modified car and it has a unexplained fault, 99% of the time the fault will be of, or as a result of, the aftermarket modifications. Modified parts just have a much much higher rate of failure than OEM ones, and that goes double when the OEM is Toyota. I've personally had aftermarket knocking coilovers, sheared front suspension control arm, wiring fault causing intermittent non-start, to name just three.

I'm not taking a moral stand against mods here, one of my cars has plenty. Just to say that when things do start to go wrong, always start by suspecting the non-factory spec parts.

[KC_TypeR]

Thanks Samoht, I'll certainly remember it for next time! And to think I questioned Lexus' unquestionable reliability!

[texaxile]

KC_TypeR said:

Update here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

TLDR: The cheap spacers I bought sheared their lugs off!

They're pretty judgemental in GG as you said in one of your replies there!. I admit a few of them made me giggle a bit, some people are pretty self righteous given half the chance.

Bottom line, no one was injured, no harm done and a lesson learned and shared. I'm always a bit wary of some of the stuff from Ebay these days ever since I purchased some Bosch wipers that turned out to be either fake or a very poor batch, there's some real crap out there.

Japspeed have a decent reputation for selling good quality stuff, so I don't think you'll go far wrong.