ES250 Owner here... New to the forums and vehicle

[250for750]

I picked up this 91 es250 from a friend of mine last week. $750 with a clean title and "only" 140k miles. It has some noisy exhaust leak and there's a slight knocking sound coming from the front passenger side when I go over bumps. The transmission also hesitates sometimes, could this be fixed with some new fluid? It's automatic, wish it was 5 speed though.

I searched and there's not much on this car here, and absolutely nothing useful on Lexus forums.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, some cheap mods would be awesome to know of as well.

[blu_91_cam]

Welcome to the forums man. Congrats on the purchase. Your car is essentially the v6 version of the camry same engine and what not.

The knocking you speak of might be a suspension related problem. Perhaps blown strut? Honesty I'm not too sure but theirs bound to be someone on here that can help you.

Again welcome

[250for750]

Yeah it's definitely suspension related but I just wanna know what. I really hope it's not too costly.

[WannaBButch]

Maybe a cv joint.

[Kingdom934]

Or a strut mount.

Either way, thats a pretty good deal. As for the transmission, depending on how much the tranny has been up keep, I would just do a drain and refill for now. Sometimes a full on flush is too harsh on a tranny that hasn't been maintained regularly.

[250for750]

I'll give the drain and refill a try for now. Thanks for all the input guys!

[white90dx]

The suspension knock is probably the lower control arm to swaybar bushings. Take a look and you should be able to see the problem under there. You can also lift the car off the ground and see if the wheel moves forward and back. If the bushings are the problem, just buy a pair off eBay for an '87-'91 Camry (get the full arms with new bushings and ball joints).

As other said, it could also be upper strut mounts, struts, ball joints or axles. Whatever it is, it shouldn't be very expensive if you can do the work yourself...

-Charlie

[250for750]

Well I'm gonna inspect everything tomorrow. I will be doing the work myself with professional help if needed. I really love this car though. It rides great and has nice body lines, the wheels are just gay.

[250for750]

Well today I found out what the noise was the hard way. Was driving down the road from my house to town and the knocking noise went away, but the car started shaking violently instead. Pulled over, looked and the boots on both ends of both axles were off and the bearings were all over the place.

Not fun. Didn't even put 80 miles on the car before it fucked up.

[250for750]

Got two new axles and they're going in soon.

[fredk]

check the wheel bearings

[250for750]

Uh, the wheel bearings are fine. Had it looked at by a professional mechanic and both axles were shot. I'm going to start installing the new ones this evening.