First Drive - CEL - Cam Sprocket Fix

[TeamSweet86]

I received a phone call from Santa Monica Subaru on Friday, 8/17/12, informing me that my BRZ had arrived! Super excited, I signed all the dotted lines and drove away from the dealership. I live about 30 miles away and at some point while driving after showing my family the car, the check engine light and traction light came on. Started her up Saturday morning and everything seemed to be okay, but I took it to the dealer anyway just to be sure.

A diagnostic was performed and the mechanic told me that there was a problem with the ignition timing. I'm not sure if anything was done at that point to my car, but they sent me on my way and told me to come back if the lights came on again.

I drove around for about 100 miles on Saturday and at times my car just did not feel right. Shaky engine which shook the whole car, rpm fluctuations while idling, slow acceleration from first gear. But no return of the check engine light.

Well, Sunday I went for a drive around Torrance Beach and the check engine light came on. I parked my car, snapped a few pictures for memorial purposes, because I was upset and started to believe the past 2 years I spent following the production of this car, + the 5 months waiting after pre-ordering the car were all in vain.

I was able to get my car back to the dealer on Tuesday and pretty much told them I didn't want to see her until she's fixed. I felt bad for abandoning her but I had no choice. I'm no car scientist.

Yesterday I got a call from Dan, a Subaru tech at the dealer, who told me that Subaru had released a fix for this problem that my car and another BRZ that had recently rolled back in on a tow truck... belonging to another forum member, Hammer. The fix includes the addition of a cam sprocket. I looked it up on the internet but I won't claim to understand what it is exactly, only that it is supposed to fix and/or aid the engine timing. Does anyone know if this is a major fix? It doesn't sound very complicated but it's still worrisome.

I'm hoping that this fix is not some sort of trial and error experiment, but only time will tell. I'm happy at least that I went ahead and purchased the 100k warranty through my credit union.

My car was born 06/12, last 4 digits of the vin are 2739. Good luck to all the others in the same situation. (side note: when I dropped my car off on Tuesday another guy was in the process of buying the red car in the picture below. I don't know if his car will have the same problem as mine but I think it arrived the same day mine did. I didn't have the heart to tell him and rain on his happy day. Sorry dude if you're a member here.)

Pardon the narrative but I just needed to vent my situation. I rode a bike in college and borrowed a parents car for the past couple years waiting for this to be my first car. And I'm driving a crappy rental right now.

[whtchocla7e]

This is a very serious issue and it will bite Toyota/Subaru in the ass.

[Hotlava86]

yeah this is a huge issue. BRZ owners aren't noticing it much because there aren't as many BRZ's on the road. What is happening is, there is an Actuator in the timing setup or VVTi (variable valve timing (intelligent)) and well over 30% of the actuators made are faulty. they are failing to advance or retard the timing of the car properly to allow the car proper acceleration and cause RPM fluctuations like you were noticing. Toyota is actually rebuilding the entire top half of some customers engines because the problem is so severe, HOWEVER they are NOT informing their customers of this. I am good friends with my technician at Toyota and he said that he had done the job twice now, and that over 200 FR-S have already been repaired for the issue and about 20 of those are already showing signs or problems again....Sorry man it really sucks first year woes are always the hardest just remember warranty warranty warranty! they will get it right soon

[santorkyle]

I figured there was going to be a lot of issues when this car came out and this is why I will not buy one until the big issues are fixed and don't have to worry about having a new car that spends more time in the dealership then my garage.

[Hotlava86]

well mine has yet to spend more than 4 hours in the dealership. however i understand where your coming from.

[ahausheer]

Originally Posted by Hotlava86

yeah this is a huge issue. BRZ owners aren't noticing it much because there aren't as many BRZ's on the road. What is happening is, there is an Actuator in the timing setup or VVTi (variable valve timing (intelligent)) and well over 30% of the actuators made are faulty. they are failing to advance or retard the timing of the car properly to allow the car proper acceleration and cause RPM fluctuations like you were noticing. Toyota is actually rebuilding the entire top half of some customers engines because the problem is so severe, HOWEVER they are NOT informing their customers of this. I am good friends with my technician at Toyota and he said that he had done the job twice now, and that over 200 FR-S have already been repaired for the issue and about 20 of those are already showing signs or problems again....Sorry man it really sucks first year woes are always the hardest just remember warranty warranty warranty! they will get it right soon

Do you have any insight as to whether or not this is a design issue or a manufacturing issue? With such prevalence I wonder if there is a design issue?

[alrashwa]

Originally Posted by Hotlava86

yeah this is a huge issue. BRZ owners aren't noticing it much because there aren't as many BRZ's on the road. What is happening is, there is an Actuator in the timing setup or VVTi (variable valve timing (intelligent)) and well over 30% of the actuators made are faulty. they are failing to advance or retard the timing of the car properly to allow the car proper acceleration and cause RPM fluctuations like you were noticing. Toyota is actually rebuilding the entire top half of some customers engines because the problem is so severe, HOWEVER they are NOT informing their customers of this. I am good friends with my technician at Toyota and he said that he had done the job twice now, and that over 200 FR-S have already been repaired for the issue and about 20 of those are already showing signs or problems again....Sorry man it really sucks first year woes are always the hardest just remember warranty warranty warranty! they will get it right soon

I knew it was widespread, but this is the first I've heard that the repair is not working... So there's a 10% failure rate on the "repaired" engines. Very, very disconcerting...

[cnk]

If you take the estimate of 200 cars impacted thus far along with the 6006 units sold of BRZ/FRS based on the sales numbers through July, that means only about 3.3% of the cars are known to be impacted currently. Still, not good that there is a problem, but it does put things more into perspective. You have to take things with a grain of salt. Those that have issues will be the most vocal about it. You aren't going to read multiple threads of owners proclaiming, "My car has no problems, WTF??!!".

[alrashwa]

Totally agree. I've been giving Toyota the benefit of the doubt during the 3 weeks they've had my car so I really hope that the ones with recurring issues are the smallest minority.

That said, I think there are likely more units with the issue that have not experienced the CEL yet. It seems to be a lurking issue, some people seeing it off the lot, some during break in, and others well after break in.

[Hotlava86]

Originally Posted by cnk

If you take the estimate of 200 cars impacted thus far along with the 6006 units sold of BRZ/FRS based on the sales numbers through July, that means only about 3.3% of the cars are known to be impacted currently. Still, not good that there is a problem, but it does put things more into perspective. You have to take things with a grain of salt. Those that have issues will be the most vocal about it. You aren't going to read multiple threads of owners proclaiming, "My car has no problems, WTF??!!".

200 cars as of VERY EARLY July as in july 2nd. so obviously theres been more by now.

[Hotlava86]

Originally Posted by ahausheer

Do you have any insight as to whether or not this is a design issue or a manufacturing issue? With such prevalence I wonder if there is a design issue?

its not in the "design" of the car. it's in the manufacturing of the MAIN timing actuator that Toyobaru decided on throwing into the cars VVTi system.

[cnk]

Originally Posted by Hotlava86

200 cars as of VERY EARLY July as in july 2nd. so obviously theres been more by now.

We don't have any hard numbers yet so that's purely speculation as well. Even if you were to double that amount to 400 cars impacted you would still be at 6.6% which is still not a full blown major catastrophe. The point you're missing is that there are still more cars out there without issues than there are with issues.

We are in a small group of enthusiasts of which an even smaller group actually participate in this particular forum. Perspective needs to be maintained in order to get an understanding of the true impact of these "issues".

[F3dzo]

Does someone have a chart or an excel sheet that can be filled with info and issues from owners an particular issues and serial numbers? like a shared document?

[cnk]

Someone started a thread here: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15577