Not doing the Valve Spring Recall?
 

Hi All,
I have been sitting on my recall that I received from Toyota early January or something. I have not taken my 2013 FRS for this recall yet and seeing so many issues with this recall, I was thinking about it not doing it at all. Has anyone gone this route and haven't taken their FRS to the dealer yet?

The likely hood of you having a problem because of the recall is greater than the issues the recall was attempting to fix.

I went to Sansone toyota (Sansone Auto Mall) for my recall, motor started knocking 1600 miles after recall (July 8, 2019), no lights came on, I suspect main bearing 4 spun, currently in the process of determining cause and replacing engine, looks like dealer/toyota is gonna eat the cost (according to assistant service manager).

Youre chance of having a catastrophic failure IMO is about 15-25%, theres a guy whose been drifting his car that had the recall done at the same dealer as me and as far as I know its still good. I saw 5 other FRS's getting the recall done at the same time as me, but I do not know their current state. My buddy's car spun all 4 of his bearings and seized the engine after 500 miles.

IMO if you have a car with a modded engine/drivetrain such as tune, exhaust(headers), FI, power blocks, e85, etc or plan to do such mod within 3000 miles I would not do the recall.
If you have a fairly stock car, that choice is up to you.

After doing the recall, would I do it again, 50/50, probably not unless I had a leak from the valve cover or timing chain cover.

BTW im in essex county new jersey, should meet up once my car has a new engine

Hi ya, arnie0000 and welcome to - The Forum - :clap:

I'm in a similar situation as you. I have received a recall notice and have not taken my car in. My car has about 25,000 miles on it and I am generally quite gentle with it and have not had ANY problems with it.

I figure the odds of having a problem after the recall work is greater than the odds of having the original valve springs giving out.

If (or when) the throw out bearing acts up and it's time to change the plugs, I may take it in and have the recall work done and the throw out bearing and plugs changed for the cost of the parts, while they have the engine apart.

My take is "If it ain't broke - don't let em break it".


humfrz

I'm at ~20k miles and have no plans to take it in for the recall. My car is not stock and I would rather not take any chances with issues after the recall work is done based on all the horror stories I've read here.

It's one thing if there were lots of folks reporting issues with valve springs in higher mileage cars, but the fact that most issues occurred early on with fewer miles means the odds are in your favor that if nothing broke by now, you're probably safe.

2013 BRZ and no plans to do the recall since do not want to take the chance of getting stuck paying for a new engine!

Plan to sell the BRZ anyway in DEC --likely back to the Subaru dealer. Let them take the risk with the recall.

I have no plans to have the recall done on my '13. Too much risk involved.

I think its important to vet the dealership you're taking it into. If you can be assured by Toyota that they have a master tech at that location doing the recall work and that they've done a few other cars successfully then that should be reassuring.

Since I took mine into a Subaru dealership, I'm more confident knowing they're doing this recall on multiple models and have serviced lots of model year '13 cars, and probably with a high success rate. Their printed instructions on the assembly of the engine are very specific, its a neat read.

My BRZ is running well 2500 miles after recall, currently at 108,300, Car runs cleanly with a fresh clutch throw-out bearing and spark plug change. Have done two oil changes and am running on Mobil 1 0w30 AFE, running well through the hot summer, car drives smooth.

I am considering running an endoscope line through the oil drain plug and check the oil pickup screens and perhaps send an oil sample for analysis - thats just another $100 of dealing with an extra oil change though at the moment. I might call the dealership and have them check it for me.

Other thoughts are we are given a reasonable warranty on the recall items unless your dealership is acting shady. Hope you bought that extended warranty.

I agree with you mostly, but one thing so everyone is clear, the multiple models that Subaru is doing do NOT have the same engines in them. The problematic issue of the sealant is unique to the 86/BRZ (as I've read it) so they are no more likely to have done any more, and actually probably less of them, than a Toyota dealer.

In other words, "Sleep well".

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

THIS ^ The other engines and years do not have to come apart to even remotely the level of the FA20. They also do not use sealant for every mating surface even if they did come apart. The instructions are radically different. There are three 13 FRSs out there for every 13 BRZ so the Toyota techs will have had more practice by now.

So are you saying to take it for the recall fix? I am at 70,000 miles now.

My FRS is stock. I have no mods done on them. My thought is that I am already past the engine warranty. And I called Crystal Auto Mall on Rt 22. They strongly recommended to get the fix done. Also, I talked to the technician there and he has done few of these repairs so far and no issues yet.

Thanks! I was thinking along the same line, however, I have about 70K miles on my car and hence the worry.

If you are going to get it done at all then this is good timing. The majority of the known post repair failures were all people that had it done early and complaints have dropped off to almost nothing. The instructions for the techs have been improved considerably and the failures were high enough profile that the dealerships seem to be taking more care. If you wait too long then the techs may get a bit lax, the instructions will be ignored or in general they may get sloppy again.
Keep in mind though that the failure rate of the actual springs was very, very, very low and happened at lower mileages so if you have gone this long then why mess with things?

The only reason I even started looking into it is because I felt off late there is a sluggishness in the acceleration. Now, it maybe totally a placebo effect. Also, not to mention a rickety noise when on cold days I am just on clutch or the ever famous "crickety noise" when the engine is hot.

I have 67k on my car 2013 frs. Track once, autocross once and just did 35 miles at 100. Not proud but worth it for what had to be done. Engine is running fine except when you shift at 2k, pistons sounds like crazy, but if I shift at 3k or above, nothing sounds. Only thing I have replaced was the clutch. Not thinking of doing the recall, I have papers and calls from dealers(weird) asking me to make an appointment. Nope. Not gonna happen.


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None of those are likely the valve springs. The few reported failures were sudden and catastrophic.

If you're talking about the past couple of weeks, any car is going to feel sluggish in the heat/humidity we've had in NJ.

Honestly, if you are putting this much concern and thought over the recall you are best off not doing it unless you are 100% sure.

Generally if your engine does suffer a catastrophic failure after the recall, its because of the work they did. Engine with 70k wont just spin a bearing and knock for no reason (unless the oil is literal sludge). It wont really matter if you have a warranty or not anymore since the work they did on your car is insured by them. Theres only been a few counts where the dealer/toyota have chosen not to cover their work. As far as I know at the current moment, I currently getting a replacement motor and loaner at no charge so. I did have to argue with them or threaten with lawyers, they simply ate the cost. (Easier for them when they are the biggest dealer in the area).

whats the worry? I had about 85k on mine when i did the recall. Some guys are already past 150k on the forums. If youre worried about a valve spring actually breaking there are under 100 reported incidents of this AROUND THE WORLD. Thats out of the thousands of fa20's subaru produced in the year and a half

i only did mine because i had an oil leak, also spark plugs and accessory belt

I will share what I already learned from others on here; mine is at the dealership now, "13 BRZ, 25k miles, stock, live in CA. Pre-plan: 1. talk to the service manager as I did and share your concerns. 2. Order 3 test tubes from Blackstone, mine came in yesterday. 3. have oil analyzed . I will send a test at 500 mi. and then when I do my next 2 oil changes. I will share results on here. Not a full-proof plan and have to pay for the oil analysis which sucks, but I feel less stressed now taking it in.

Do we really need another thread on the valve spring recall? I posted this in the discussion thread: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...&postcount=740
I asked this question in this post, Of the 165,534 affected vehicles have there been more than 14 valve spring failures since Oct 2016? We will never know.
As for the number of failures and successes after the recall, we will never know that exact number. We can only speculate since all affected BRZ and FRS owners are not forum members and Subaru/Toyota will never give out that data.
According to this article, dated 3-27-19, https://www.autonews.com/regulation-...spring-recalls
"Dominick Infante, a spokesman for Subaru of America, said, "All I can do is confirm that we have not seen any cars with engine issues caused by the recall fixes that we have conducted. We only had one person return post-recall fix. We still encourage owners to come in and complete engine repairs."
We do know that's not true.

Read the statement again. Comprehend it.


I, personally, wouldn't want to be dealing with some of the issues post recall that people have talked about in that thread.


If my car wound up breaking a spring while driving I'd blame Subaru. If my cars perfect running engine wound up dead post recall because of an incorrect repair, I'd blame myself.


The extreme cases people posted about.....if I lived in Cali where they FORCE the recall....I'd consider registering the car in Montana or something to avoid it.

Hi All,
Just wanted to thank everyone here for their input. I took my FRS for the recall and it has been 150 miles since the "fix". I do not feel any issues as of yet. Drives well. Dealer guarantees their work.
If anyone is in NJ area interested, I took it to Crystal Auto Mall.

I will update again after I hit 500 miles or so.

FWIW, I'm under the impression that a lot more Scion FR-S's were sold than BRZ's, so Toyota dealerships may actually have more experience with these cares than Subaru dealerships do.

I had the recall work done on mine at about 150k miles. But the guy that did it is a gear head who's brother has a turbo FRS - and he does all the work on his brother's car. If you are going to get work done on any of these cars, I highly recommend the guys at Toyota of Louisville (assuming you're in this area).

My recall appointment date came and went with no call from the dealer. They pushed me back twice already because they are so far behind.

At this point I have a spare motor anyway so lets see if I CAN break it :bonk:

I would judge your risk of doing the valve spring recall based on the rate of JO2 recalls done by your local dealership and if any of those cars have encountered an issue post recall.

If I where you I would wait until something starts leaking or you need to replace something in the engine bay and have the recall done with other things at the same time for less labor cost. The recall could mean that 8 years from now you see your timing cover leaking like hell, so take it in for the J02 recall and get that resolved for free.

Outside of Ca (who forces the recall on you) I would see the recall as not such a bad thing.

An owner here of a Toyota GT86 which went to valve spring recall in Spain a month and half ago, more or less.


I was extremely worried at the beginning of the process, just by searching info on Inet - all you'll see are cases that went completely wrong, short blocks changed and so on. However, I have been lucky somehow - my Toyota dealer is part of a group which has also Subaru among them, and they stated Subaru was going to perform the recall, with a master tech responsible for the rework. They confirmed also the warranty after the recall as well (including a borrowed car if mine had mechanical issues). As the engine is from Subaru, that made me feel a little bit better - and I was told that more GT86 and BRZs went before on their hands (I think we don't have FRS in ES). All this info made my choice to go for it.



I would say here the name of the dealer, but I guess that for most of you it will be useless as I'm the foreigner here :D :D

Don't. That's a contraction for " do not". Which means you shouldn't. the implication of that statement is that I would place my advisal of refraining. To refrain means to hold back from doing.
I don't want to leave any of this comment open to interpretation.

The dealership will take on the work if the valve springs fail. This means you do not need to do it as a precautionary measure.

So you're saying do it ASAP?


:paddle:

o ya bud fkn get er dun