Well, here's the story behind it. I moved to Seattle at the end of May but before I left I had two tires replaces because they were balding and my alignment was out of whack. I had the work done at Toyota of Tampa Bay.

After I got out here, I started to feel a vibration in the front left wheel and steering got really mushy when I would turn right. Tire wasn't flat, and the wheels were just balanced, so I was at a loss of what it could be. So I took the hub cap off and found a missing nut, and a nut that had seized half way down a stud that was grounded down (apparently putting a wrong thread nut on - probably the same nut). Which I know for a fact was NOT there before Toyota worked on it. The vibration was coming from the fact I only had two nuts holding the damn thing on and they were both on the same side of the wheel. So the wheel was bascially moving about on the axle because it wasn't completed tightened down.

I had the Toyota dealership up here replace the studs and asked them to inspect the axle to make sure nothing got broke or warped from that incident.
About three weeks later I started to get a different vibration, the kind I described above.

So I took it back in, they bascially told me the vibration from the stud issue broke the top mount of the left strut from the strut mount. I was skeptical of that diagnosis and it took them about 45 minutes to explain it to me with spare parts from another car this happened to that was in the shop a day earlier. So after much hesitation I said yes.

They called and said my car was fixed. The tech took it on a test drive and the issue was gone. I went and picked it up, got home and then went back out again to get groceries and the issue came back again.

I took it back the next day and the service writer I had literally saw me and bolted off somewhere. Which is fine cause I know the Service Manager from when I worked for Lexus a few years ago. I took him on a drive and agreed there was no possible way that the tech could have missed that sound.

They basically told me I could have the struts and strut mounts and get what I paid in a credit towards whatever the actual issue is and get the difference back. I gave them the okay to proceed with the engine mounts cause that work is about half that of replacing the struts, so if anything I get half my money back and free struts.

They've had my car two weeks (when I posted this thread) and they JUST called me yesterday and said it was done. Eventhough they had the parts already in stock. I'm really skeptical of the issue now since it took them two weeks to do a three hour job.

I personally think it's the bearings in the front left axle myself. I guess we'll see this next week when I go to pick it up. If anything, I do know the dealership owner. I used to work with him personally when I worked for Lexus because he also owns that dealership as well.