I really did not want to make this post, but this needs to be seen by everyone cause I don't think it's excusable.
No I'm not a Toyota/Lexus hater, in fact, my family has 7 vehicles, 5 of which are Toyota. My grandfather was a Chief Engineer of Toyota's quality control division at the Tsutsumi plant in Japan for 55 years, so if anything, I'm extremely biased.
2 months ago, I was doing the front and rear brake pads on my Lexus GX460 (60k on original pads). I take off the front wheels and do the job, but when I go put the tire on, lower it to the ground, and then start to torque them, one of them on the left front tire snaps in half. To give you an idea, I was using a digital torque wrench and it snapped at 40ft.lb. The next day I had to go buy another wheels stud, take the whole brake system apart again, hammer the old stud out, and press the new one in. I finish, torque the wheel fully without any issues, and then I move onto the front right wheel where I still have not torqued the wheel on. I go to do it and boom, another stud broke. I had to do that whole process of going to get another stud and replacing it for the 2nd time which was pissing me off because my step-father needed the vehicle to go to work.
If you're wondering why I'm pissed about wheel studs, it's because literally every other car we had or have has not had this issue. My step-father literally stomps on the breaker bar tightening the wheel on our 350Z without any issues (Yes I told him to stop doing that).
I told my grandfather about this and was just disappointed, especially because the vehicle is built in Tahara (Toyota's most advanced Japanese assembly plant) and our vehicle had this issue. He told me to call Lexus USA, and they ended up refunding the money that I spent on the wheel studs that I bought from the dealer ($9 each). Honestly I get anxiety now every time I take the wheel off the Lexus, so I hope they were just oddities. If more break, I will 100% post about it.
Also if you don't believe me, I saved the studs and here's a picture of them. I don't know where the head of the 2nd one went though.
Honestly, that’s shocking! But I hope it was just a manufacturing defect with a certain batch. Please do let us know if you suffer the same failure on the new parts.
If the remaining studs were from the saw batch, they may suffer similar failures too, just keep that in mind.