Originally Posted by Spungus

I know your pain, I went through and chased this thing on my 17 runner for 2 years before figuring out what it was.

Intermediate shaft replaced by toyota - no change
Swapped out cv axles - no change
New tie rod ends - no change
New steering rack from toyota - no change
New coilovers and upper control arms - no change

I was going to drive my truck off a cliff, until I decided to check out my lower control arms. I wanted to pull them off to inspect the bushings, but ran into a seized cam bolt. Out comes the sawzall and after a dozen blades I cut out the seized bolt. What I found out is the rust had filled in the thread grooves on the cam bolt. It was so bad because it never got tightened to spec after alignments and as a result there was slop in the lower control arm which caused the bushings to fail.

So, thousands of dollars in toyota warranty bucks, hours of my time, and new gray hairs all for a $30 cam bolt essentially. The torque spec for those are 129 ft/lb, most shops only do 100 ft/lbs. See where this is heading? Have someone look at those lower control arm bolts and bushings. But be prepared to spend $320ish an arm if that is the case. A seized bolt or even a bad bushing is a death sentence and the whole thing will need to be replaced.

Good luck!