Unofficial - CEL/SL/Idle Issue List for FR-S/BRZ Owners

[slowbrz]

Originally Posted by DaJoian

That's why choosing the right dealership to buy from is so important...

you can get your car serviced at any dealer though it doesnt have to be from the one you bought it from

[jduffy]

Originally Posted by hampersnow

I would like to thank everyone who has posted on this thread because reading the horror stories has kept me from a purchase this morning. The largest Toyota dealer in Central Virginia has a red and a blue automatic and all I had to do was choose which one. after staying up till 1 am reading these posts I went to the dealer with print outs of these posts and other articles online about this problem. the salesman dismissed it as lies and "people jumping on the bandwagon" of a select few problems. the head of the service department knew nothing of this problem and said they have had no complaints out of 18 to 20 sales there. he said Toyota has not informed them of anything but a possible fuel pump problem.
I feel with all that has been written about this problem on this car, it would have been better to hear that at least they knew it existed. This is a huge dealership. the Vin #s on both these cars start with 709XXX and one was made August 22nd according to the salesman.
Although this would be a second car for me, i still decided not to chance it right now. Do you think I've been too hasty in saying no to the sale ? thanks....Charles

Think about it, you chose to not purchase a car based on an issue that is happening to less than 1% of the manufactured vehicles.

Again though, it's your choice, no one is forcing you to make it either way.

[slowbrz]

Originally Posted by jduffy

Think about it, you chose to not purchase a car based on an issue that is happening to less than 1% of the manufactured vehicles.

Again though, it's your choice, no one is forcing you to make it either way.

Is it really 1%? Thought it was closer to 50%

[jesperswe]

Originally Posted by slowbrz

Is it really 1%? Thought it was closer to 50%

50%?!?

There are about 10 000 BRZ/FRS (maybe even more) sold in USA and there is about 150 on this list (some are not from USA even) and then there are probably more cars affected that's not on the list/forum.
But you would need 5000+ cars to make it into 50% failure rate

1% is more accurate than 50.....

In Sweden there are around 200cars sold, maybe 5-6 have the CEL issue. We are just the ones who drew the short straw

If you take into account all the GT86/BRZ/FR-S/86 which are manufacured and sold the fail rate is most likely around 1%.

[brichard0625]

Originally Posted by jesperswe

50%?!?

There are about 10 000 BRZ/FRS (maybe even more) sold in USA and there is about 150 on this list (some are not from USA even) and then there are probably more cars affected that's not on the list/forum.
But you would need 5000+ cars to make it into 50% failure rate

1% is more accurate than 50.....

In Sweden there are around 200cars sold, maybe 5-6 have the CEL issue. We are just the ones who drew the short straw

If you take into account all the GT86/BRZ/FR-S/86 which are manufacured and sold the fail rate is most likely around 1%.

Yea it has to be around that rate. There might be more people with the selected issue but its no where near 50% maybe 1to2%...I notice that most of the problems are vins below 7100mark so i would look for one in range higher than that lol

[Iixii]

Originally Posted by hampersnow

I would like to thank everyone who has posted on this thread because reading the horror stories has kept me from a purchase this morning. The largest Toyota dealer in Central Virginia has a red and a blue automatic and all I had to do was choose which one. after staying up till 1 am reading these posts I went to the dealer with print outs of these posts and other articles online about this problem. the salesman dismissed it as lies and "people jumping on the bandwagon" of a select few problems. the head of the service department knew nothing of this problem and said they have had no complaints out of 18 to 20 sales there. he said Toyota has not informed them of anything but a possible fuel pump problem.
I feel with all that has been written about this problem on this car, it would have been better to hear that at least they knew it existed. This is a huge dealership. the Vin #s on both these cars start with 709XXX and one was made August 22nd according to the salesman.
Although this would be a second car for me, i still decided not to chance it right now. Do you think I've been too hasty in saying no to the sale ? thanks....Charles

It's possible that the salesman doesn't really know the issues with this car but telling you that it's all lies then that is BS. Why would you even go to the dealer and point out the issues? Is the list and issues not enough for you? Do you want to be convinced by the salesman that everything is going to be OK? I've done it too but only on the phone and I realized it's pointless. I can go to any dealer with a car available and buy it. I don't need to be convinced by a salesman if I should buy it or not.
I'm in the same boat as you and I even created this post/poll:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18851

[tawheed]

For everyone feeling bad. This is not limited to Toyota / Subaru etc. Porsche's M96/M97 had inherent IMS design problem from 1997-2008. When it failed, you needed a new engine to the tune of $15k.. Ouch.

[dawnst3ar]

So, given just the numbers we have on this thread....

To date, there have been around 10183 total sales of the FR-S/BRZ.

Of those, we know of 152 that have had the issue...

so, 152/10183 = 0.01492 or around 1.5% that we know of FROM THIS THREAD. I would postulate that the number is slightly higher, but I doubt that it is more than 2-3%, and that Toybaru will fix it in time.

On the other hand, we have been seeing these same approximate numbers throughout the time we have been collecting the data - around 1-2% of all the cars sold at any given time appeared on this forum under this thread with the same issue. I do not think that it has gotten more widespread, but that we are just finding out about more of the issues as more cars are sold.

It is like the crime rates - we percieve that there is more crime today than there was 20-30 years ago, when the opposite is actually true. This is because we are able to hear the reports of the crimes that do happen much more readily than we could then, so it seems that there is a new atrocity every day, and that there was only one a week in the past - when there were really 2-3 a day, but only the most egregious were reported nationwide, mainly due to a lack of space to report them all.

[Eurasianman]

I just wanted to point out one thing I've noticed. If the dealership says it's sold x amount of FR-S/BRZ and none of them have had that issue, do not forget to take in the fact that some of the people buying the car are from out of town/state. Therefore, if they do have issues with their car, they might take it to their local dealership versus the dealership they bought it from. I've seen people on this forum buy a car that is 600 miles away from where they live. I would not expect them to drive 600 miles back to the dealership they bought it just get their vehicle serviced. My dealership has sold a few BRZs and I don't think the service department there has received any of them back with issues. But who's to say that the buyers weren't from another city/state where their closet dealership did not have any of these cars for sale?

[choi0706]

fwiw, the 812 ecu fixed it for me..

[@Art_Mighty]

Originally Posted by hampersnow

I would like to thank everyone who has posted on this thread because reading the horror stories has kept me from a purchase this morning. The largest Toyota dealer in Central Virginia has a red and a blue automatic and all I had to do was choose which one. after staying up till 1 am reading these posts I went to the dealer with print outs of these posts and other articles online about this problem. the salesman dismissed it as lies and "people jumping on the bandwagon" of a select few problems. the head of the service department knew nothing of this problem and said they have had no complaints out of 18 to 20 sales there. he said Toyota has not informed them of anything but a possible fuel pump problem.
I feel with all that has been written about this problem on this car, it would have been better to hear that at least they knew it existed. This is a huge dealership. the Vin #s on both these cars start with 709XXX and one was made August 22nd according to the salesman.
Although this would be a second car for me, i still decided not to chance it right now. Do you think I've been too hasty in saying no to the sale ? thanks....Charles

My dealer has sold about 25 of these things so far and I'm the only one to come back so I'm not surprised by their response. Also keep in mind that the only official Toyota/Subaru communication about this issue in the U.S. has been to the press, primarily because of the existence of this thread.

Honestly there's only a small chance this would occur. If you want it, buy it.

[developer]

Originally Posted by choi0706

fwiw, the 812 ecu fixed it for me..

You mentioned in previous posts of throttle lag. Did the 812 ecu improve that problem? Are you still getting an idle dips? If so how often/bad are they?

[fistpoint]

Originally Posted by hampersnow

I would like to thank everyone who has posted on this thread because reading the horror stories has kept me from a purchase this morning. The largest Toyota dealer in Central Virginia has a red and a blue automatic and all I had to do was choose which one. after staying up till 1 am reading these posts I went to the dealer with print outs of these posts and other articles online about this problem. the salesman dismissed it as lies and "people jumping on the bandwagon" of a select few problems. the head of the service department knew nothing of this problem and said they have had no complaints out of 18 to 20 sales there. he said Toyota has not informed them of anything but a possible fuel pump problem.
I feel with all that has been written about this problem on this car, it would have been better to hear that at least they knew it existed. This is a huge dealership. the Vin #s on both these cars start with 709XXX and one was made August 22nd according to the salesman.
Although this would be a second car for me, i still decided not to chance it right now. Do you think I've been too hasty in saying no to the sale ? thanks....Charles

The next time some mouth-breathing moron says to you: "do you believe everything you read on the internet?"...ask this imbecile if he's ever actually used the internet.

Ask him if he knows the difference between random postings about Obamas birth certificate versus thousands of owners on a website dedicated entirely to one single vehicle and sharing their experiences with it(good and bad). If he can't tell the difference, then he's a complete idiot.

[hampersnow]

thank you to all who responded to my post about my NOT buying an FR-S this morning. I do believe the salesman I dealt with was an idiot, especially considering I took the time to print out pages of proof (none of which he read). while this forum knows of 152 cases, it would seem to me that means realistically a few hundred cases exist and that should be enough for Toyota to inform it's dealerships of the problem. this dealership has an excellent reputation (my friends and i have all purchased from here) but should a problem arise I shouldn't have to be the one explaining to them what the problem might be. from what I've read problems can pop up even before a CEL comes on. BTW, the salesman also informed me the problem could be caused by people who didn't know how to drive manual.
There are few of these cars for sale in Virginia. I found only one other within 100 miles but it had nearly 400 miles on it. many advertise they have some in stock but do not when you call. one dealership changed their story 4 times about what they had coming in. strangely though the red car i saw has been sitting 3 weeks now unsold. maybe others are holding back on purchasing with word of this problem ? I know manual is the desirable choice but I cant be the only one who wants automatic. Ultimately I think it's up to Toyota to acknowledge the problem and inform their dealers. For right now I'll wait.