Hope y’all figure this out, as it’s unnerving. Our ‘23 Sequoia had a pop that turned out was the TRD skid plate torqued wrong. The guy who figured it out I was a Toyota service manager that goes to my church. Saw him recently & we were talking about LC & GX being close in many things & generalizing he said that they see LC w/ 2 common areas causing undercarriage noises -
1 - Aftermarket parts. He said skid plates, puck levels (especially) & bolt on rails cause the most headaches. His way of testing for them is to go up on a lift to get full extension of suspension, then very slowly come down with several techs around vehicle (1 in drivers seat/ vehicle running), & apply ever-more weight slowly back to the suspension while turning the steering wheel back & forth. Insulators on skid plate are a must in his opinion. Proper torque on step rails, and he said they see pucks miss-installed all the time on Tundra, Tacoma, 4Runner & occasionally on LC.
2 - Sway bars. They add grease to the sway bar brackets & retorque as a first step if it’s a bone-stock unit. He also added they have found wheel lugs will pop if the locking nuts aren’t torqued smoothly in the criss cross pattern. Said some places tighten 5 lugs w/ impact & then hand torque the locking nuts & that causes rim to talk back to you. Said aftermarket wheels without the need for hubcentric lugs are known for noises.
I went home & greased my sway bar brackets.
