Valve Spring Recall Resolved!!!
 

Happy New Year Everyone!!!
I wanted everyone to know that I took my FR-S into my local Toyota dealership on November 26 for the valve spring recall debacle.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have any info yet on the recall but they graciously gave me a rental car and covered the entire rental car cost.
Surprisingly, they called me today to tell me that my car was done and ready to be picked up. Moreover, I never received the “official” letter in the mail from Toyota.
It was about a $1300.00 dealer service charge (which will be billed to Toyota).

J02002 J02 - Perform J02 (Replace the Engine Valve Springs) on M
(1) Spring Valve Kit (MT) SU003-08062
(2) GT Super LLC Blue 00272-GTBC1
(1) Seal Packing 00295-1217H
New Oil, Oil Filter, Gasket

12.50 hours of labor

Thank you Scion and Toyota for the awesome customer service!!

Any detail on the work performed? Any after - work break in? (I would expect not)

So they kept your car and gave you a rental form Nov 26th until now?

J02002 J02 - Perform J02 (Replace the Engine Valve Springs) on M
(1) Spring Valve Kit (MT) SU003-08062
(2) GT Super LLC Blue 00272-GTBC1
(1) Seal Packing 00295-1217H
New Oil, Oil Filter, Gasket

12.50 hours of labor

Dealer didn’t mention anything - just to drive the car normally and thanked me for being patient for the six weeks they had my car.

And yes, dealership provided me with a brand new 2018 Toyota RAV4 - full rental cost covered - except for the gas.

Yes, the dealership provided me with a brand new 2018 Toyota RAV4 - full rental cost covered - except for the gas for the 6 weeks they had my FR-S.

Congratulations!

Where is Tustin?


humfrz

In California - Orange County.

just curious why the details you listed don't show new coolant or AC fluid. The procedure should involve evacuating both.

Oh, California - :w00t:


humfrz

thanks for the update, hows the car running now, notice any difference?

Do you know if they had to unseal and re pack the engine back together or what process they did to replace the valve springs as @ermax mentioned in

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...&postcount=430

Any charge for the rental? I may take mine in if I can get a rental for the winter. I think I read that $30 a day is covered by Toyota.

Sounds like a pretty solid dealership, covering a rental for so long on a recall they didn't even have the info for at first.

@hgamit


FYI

"GT Super LLC Blue 00272-GTBC1" is toyotas "long life coolant" they definitely replaced the coolant and flushed it out if they used two bottles of it.



By AC "fluid" you mean refrigerant, which is probably listed on the receipt somewhere or they simply recovery vacuumed out the old refrigerant and reused which is a simple proper fix, replacing refrigerant isn't really necessary unless there's un-condensables/contamination in the system. They could've also just refilled it with new refrigerant without listing it.

Valve Recall with FI
 

Got to admit this one makes me nervous. Toyota in my small town just does not see enough FA20s to know what they are doing and I'm running a full Delicious Tuning E85 Edlbrock SC setup with a bunch of under the hood mods to support it. I was in asking about a minor cam carrier leak (that was actually there prior to adding the SC so stupid on me to put on the SC before making them fix it...) and they said they would do it but if they even suspected it was due to the SC they would charge me full price. You know damn well they would have found a reason to charge me :thumbdown: . I've got 45K miles on this thing so you would think I would have seen this by now if it was going to be an issue (especially with FI). If they manage to drop a bunch of sealant into the engine I could be screwed right quick. I was hoping to avoid buying a built short block for a while.

Sad part is the Subaru dealer (same parent company) won't touch it because it's a Toyota. Ya I get it but its really annoying.

BTW I never got a letter, but after checking with Toyota I'm in.

Would they still perform the Safety Recall, even if you have basic bolt on mods? Headers, Intake, Catback Exhaust?

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Thanks.
The full procedure was posted in the other thread (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uUi..._dVLZl_w7/view), makes clear that refrigerant is recovered and engine oil and coolant are drained before all new refrigerant/oil/coolant is replaced in the car.

They should do it regardless as it's an NHTSA monitored recall however....

Put the stock tune, headers and intake back at the least, and they will very much so have to to it and won't damage your mods, it's a serious recall at this point not a TSB if i recall

That's AWESOME ! This was done at Tustin Toyota?

You don't "drain" refrigerant. It is recovered in to the same machine you use to recharge it. Recover 2 lbs, fill 2 lbs, no charge needed.

We reuse engine oil as well as coolant. Warranty doesn't pay to replace them if they weren't the problem. Say you need to remove a coolant hose and oil filter housing to reseal a front cover, the oil and coolant is reused, they were fine when you started the job.

you refill engines with used oil?

What’s the support for this recall if you have FI kit since this is a major tuner car? I would assume this would be a re-occurring question?

According to the dealerships that I have called about modded cars for this recall, they would still perform the job but would charge extra for removing the parts that are in the way.

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thats what he said.

You are suppose to replace the coolant and the engine oil. Read page 10 of the repair manual.

Yeah. Reusing refrigerant for sure but oil and coolant? That seems unlikely, from a liability standpoint as much as anything else.

I don’t work at a toyota dealership. Premium brand. We don’t make the rules, just follow them. What’s the difference if the work wasn’t done and the oil was still in the car vs removing and putting it back?

Kind of like “you can never reuse a steering wheel bolt” until it’s a recall, then it’s fine to reuse the steering wheel bolt. You’d be surprised what gets done under warrranty.

Again, not Toyota. A brand you would expect to be much more discerning.

Reuse of Engine Oil, Coolant, Hydraulic Fluids is pretty standard practice in many shops, especially under Warranty. Unless the system is contaminated by the failure, then it would be replaced as part of the warranty claim. If the fluid is near the end of its "use", then it would be replaced and billed to the customer as general maintenance, usually customer would just be billed for the fluids and not the labor.

For some minor repairs were only a smaller hose is replaced, the tech can install a vacuum system on the reservoir that aids is reducing leaks/draining, so there is only the need to top off vs drain then refill the whole or partial system.

I work in the service world on heavy equipment were fluid is measured in gallons, not quarts. 50 gallons of coolant, 60 gallons in a trans, 100gallons in hydraulics etc.

Called my dealership. They are telling me that they have to order the parts and it will take one or two weeks.

I never got the letter in the mail but I'm dropping my car off tomorrow since I'll be on vacation for the next few days. They confirmed that I'll get a rental so I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Dropped mine off today. They told me up to two weeks even with the parts currently in stock. I think they're just padding it. Gave me the free rental booked through next week for now, but will adjust as necessary.

I just got the recall notice. I have 160k on my engine now. It's a shame they will have to do this on such a high mileage car. 'Course, it's still running like new, so who knows...

Since the dealership is by my workplace and it's 75 miles from my home, I'm assuming they will do the free rental car as well. :)

I have a really good relationship with the dealer because I own three scions, drive a lot, and am constantly in there for oil changes, etc. They even gave me a rental car once even though they didn't have to.

The guy that always works on my car has a brother that has a turbo FR-S. They say they only let that guy touch my car.

BTW, He showed me the dual clutch he was putting into his MR-2 spyder once. That MR2 of his is one sweet ride.

Based on the time it's taken them to do work before, I'd expect them to have mine done in two days. Three at the absolute outside.

Ok so I figured I should come back with an update. I decided to go ahead and do the recall. After some annoying negotiations on the amount of time it would take them to deal with the Edelbrock supercharger and Delicious Tuning E85 kit we settled on an additional 4-5 hours (what pissed me off is they didn't bother to tell me any of this prior to bringing the car in). They were pushing for up to 14 hours, but frankly anything over 2 is robbery given what they already have to do with the OEM setup (seriously how hard is it for an experienced mechanic to undue an additional 6 bolts, 2 hoses, and a few electrical connectors). We ended up going to the regional head of service who green-lighted 4-5 hrs. They also did the warranty work on the cam carrier (leaking) and installed new spark plugs.

The car was at the dealer for about 3.5 weeks. Interestingly Toyota gives them 14.5 hours to do the recall and the service manager indicated this was the first car they had in for that work. When I got it back there were a number of new noises and issues. The biggest problem was they did not properly go through the ECU learning cycle and test the vehicle. That was obvious from the way it drove, there was no oil on the dipstick (it has a Perrin oil cooler which apparently they managed to drain), and there was significant noises that should not have been there.

Noises:

I presume that the low oil level was leading to cavitation in the oil pump (?) or some other critical system on startup (yep, still pissed but at least I live only 5 miles from the dealer). It ended up being a quart low. The coolant levels in the overflow tanks for both the engine and the supercharger were low and I had to top them off multiple times so air was stuck in systems. However, all that was 'minor' (from a noise perspective) compared to the mechanical 'banging' that was going on when the engine was under load and in gear. Long story short (and due to no fault of the mechanic) the Motive overpipe was banging on the sway bar under specific conditions. You could hear and feel it every time you hit the gas lightly while in gear. The reinstall of the engine must have positioned it just different enough to cause the problem. Also, the serpentine belt tensioner went bad while they had it... (bouncing back and forth and causing the belt to slip). After installing a new tensioner and readjusting the exhaust everything sounds fine. I should note that they broke about a dozen plastic clips but lets be honest after 5 years in an engine bay I can't fault them for that.

So biggest problem is really the oil and complete lack of communication on the things they broke or were failing (belt tensioner).

All in all so far things are fine. It just took me half a Saturday to figure out how to fix the fix. :burnrubber: