Private Mechanic doing Valve Spring replacement
 

Has anyone done this? I'm in Calif where its mandatory to have this done for registration. It isn't a safety issue so not sure why. Anyway I'm thinking of having a private mechanic do the work and just pay for it. I've just heard too many horror stories about engine failure after the dealers performs the work then the owners are stuck with a 7K bill.

A dealer still has to sign off on it.
Most of the horror stories were back when they first stated doing them and then taper off as the issue became known. Check with a couple of dealers and see how many they have done and if they had problems. I think you will find they pay a lot more attention to the work now.

Thanks man. Yeah that’s the plan. I have 3 dealers on my call list for Monday to talk with service managers. It seems they’ve narrowed the reasons for failure down to a couple of things so my plan Is to outline those and discuss with the manager and tech that will be doing the work to make sure they’re aware.

Also @TommyW it's important to note you're in california which most likely has a wide spread of dealers that have done this valve spring job before. So as tcoat said you can contact them and have less of a chance of something going wrong.

This knee jerk fear over the valve spring recall is like totally unreal lol

Yall know it's like a 12 hour job as per the shop manual, right? Like, the motor has to be removed, and then the heads pretty thoroughly disassembled.
It's a lot of labor to pay for.
And then you have to pay for the new springs. I have no idea how much they are, but it's laughable to even consider paying for it out of pocket when it's being offered for free.

One of the mechanics is a Subaru tech, with all the parts laid out, specific instructions from Subaru, all the tools and equipment to do the job. By now, they have probably done at least 200 of them. Oh, and, by the way, it's free. The entire job, plus oil change, plus coolant, and a few other small trinkets.

The other mechanic is a private tech, with none of the parts until you either supply them, or he finds a list of all the parts necessary. He has no instructions, other than his own intuition/experience. Maybe he can find some torque values, but that's it. And all his tools/equipment are generic.
This will very likely be the first valve spring recall he's ever done.
Oh, and his price is $1000 + parts.

Tough call....

If you're THAT worried about it with $$$ to blow, why don't you just let the dealer do it for free, sign off on the recall, and then immediately go to a private shop and have performance valvetrain put in or something?
The fear mongering just don't make sense to me.

Well there you go. Stomachbuzz has spoken. Nothing to worry about.

Well with all the posts and the lawsuits I’d say that there are concerns. Toyota dealers working on Subaru FA20’s. Then not taking the blame when the motor goes then you have a very expensive problem. I think Coat is right though enough time has gone by to where they should know what the fu*k they’re doing. Good time to get a new clutch installed to handle the FI that’s coming soon

I want to hear what he has to say about boxers vs briefs. I just hope he sides with boxers because I don't know if I can handle the backlash otherwise.

In all seriousness, if it were me, and had to have it done, I would do what @Tcoat says. I would talk with every dealer within driving distance, and find out how many they have done, results, etc.. I would bring up all concerns and causes of failure from others on this site. Then after work was done, I would drive it easy for a couple weeks and then drop pan and clean pickup screens, etc. I would probably even do that again a month later.

I'm sorry, who are you, again?

I'd rather have my engine blow up at dealer's fault and be part of a legitimate lawsuit than have the motor blow up by a private mechanic and have zero recourse.

well I have a very trusted mechanic that has worked on all but my Porsches for 30:years. I’m sure this is hard for you to understand. Carry on....

I am Batman.

I am a travelling bacon collector with a penchant for kite flying. I have arachibutyrophobia and like long walkways that lead to beaches.

Sapphireho is a former conjoined twin educated in endogamic marital counseling and trained in Sambo. He likes long walks on the beach, is allergic to peanuts and has luposlipaphobia. Also, he's Batman.

It’s a long job and expensive job. It makes no sense to pay for it when the dealer is doing it for free. You also get a rental car and warranty through the dealership.

I can't wait to see you together on House Hunters then

If I where you I would take it to Longo, they have a solid track record of performing the J02 recall. I was super paranoid and difficult customer and they did a good job. They had no problems telling me if any of the cars they have worked on for J02 recalls had comeback with engine failure. Danny the service advisor I had, told me the few issues they have seen after the recall which where minor and then resolved by the dealer. I would guess they have done over 40+ at this point.

I did a lot of research to find the most capable dealership with the best service dept record in the general area and found that Longo wast the best bet. Call em up and ask for Danny the service advisor and make sure the master tech named Jason does the job. When I had mine done he was the only person allowed to do the job, and he did it well. They let me go meet Jason and talk with him, he was doing a J02 recall on another FRS at the time. I explained Im paranoid and Im placing a lot of trust in him because I treasure my twin greatly. He reassured me and did a solid job.

Awesome. Thank you. I will reach out to them for sure.

While I agree that a dealer should do this (and a private mechanic won't be able to show the recall as completed anyways..) there are plenty of failures still happening. A co worker had his fail about a month ago. The car I bought from salvage auction was just done 3 or 4 months ago (and it then got hailed on while sitting around broken).

So again I agree the dealer should do the work but let's not pretend that they aren't still breaking them.

lol
dealers and mechanics will break everything they touch eventually

I'm skeptical the failure rate on this recall is really any higher than the failure rate on any service they do. The difference is this recall is much more invasive than most vehicle services they do.

I had the frame replaced on my 2005 Tacoma, and my truck was disgusting when they gave it back. It was ridiculous. So many issues (large and small) that I have well documented through legal paperwork, photos, videos, etc.

I shoved it up their *** then, and I [was]/[am still] prepared to do that if my FRS blows up. They get paid for the service, and I'm not going to be worse off because they f'ed it up.
But it's also been like 8k miles since they did the recall, so I don't know.

I think you guys have to realize -- and a lot of owners of these cars are young men who have little, if any, experience with car ownership or dealing with mechanics/dealerships -- this is a risk with any service you have performed on your car, or anything else in your life for that matter!

It's ALWAYS the same deal:
"You broke it when you were working on it."
No I didn't.
"Yes, you did."
Prove it!


It's literally the same thing.
Let's say your Chevy Malibu blows the head gasket. You pay the dealer to fix it.
15k miles later it blows again, and you take it to a different shop who says "whoa whoa whoa!!! This was shoddy work!"

What are you gonna do? Take it back to the dealer, who will deny it, then you gotta fight them.
This is not isolated to the "J02 recall" -- it's LIFE guys.

You hire an HVAC tech to work on the AC at your house. 6 months later you find out they goofed around and tweaked one of your refrigerant lines, causing it to rupture when winter came.
You have to turn back the clock 6 months and try to fight them on it.
"That happened after we left."


The easier it is to hide being the ambiguity of the situation, the more they will do it.
"Someone else FUBAR'd that after we worked on it"
"It wasn't like that when I worked on it"
"Prove it was us"
"Your car was already like that"

It's always he said/she said. You have to learn skills and develop tools to protect yourself in this world. Maybe you gotta be that annoying customer who takes lots of B&A pictures. Maybe you have to meet each tech working on the car. Maybe you have to be that annoying guy who calls 3 dealers and asks how much experience they have with the recall.
Maybe you gotta get your hands dirty afterwards fighting an uphill battle, threatening legal action.

Of course mechanics can break something while attempting a fix. This failure rate is much higher though because they RTV the ever living shit out of it after scraping off a ton of RTV that was factory applied. I've taken one of these repaired (and then blown up) FA20s apart and the amount of RTV used was absolutely ridiculous. After seeing the way Toyota techs repair these (and the failure % was much higher with them than it was with Subaru techs) it's no wonder they have issues.

Now between Opie and I we have had 3 of these recalls done on personal vehicles now. Each one had an oil drain after and a quick look to see if any excess was in the pan and pickup. All were clean and none of those cars have had issues.

Show us on the hot wheels where the bad mechanic touched you...:thumbup:


But in all seriousness, there are good mechanics and bad mechanics, and even sometimes the good ones make mistakes (just like with any kind of professional-lawyers, doctors, etc.). Deal with it and move on. If you are out a lot of money because of someone's mistake, then fight for it, but don't let it consume your life. In the end, it's just a car...

Is RTV the hand applied sealer they use?

U can tell who are the ones that got screwed on the recall vs the ones who made it without any issues... The later ones tend to talk almighty and being very ignorant of the fact that a lot of people got screwed... I have to take mine in around June next year in order to get my CA registration...I am hoping for the best, but won't be surprised if I can screwed

Yes. The bigger problem is all the factory sealant they dump into the motor. The new sealant just makes it a pain in the ass to take it back apart. Mine also had a bent oil pan from their repair.

even if you get screwed dealer still needs to fix it. But While your in their have them do a few Maint. items like Spark plugs, TOB (check the clutch and have replacement on hand if needed. The dealer will do this at no costs as long as you provide them consumables.

The people getting screwed are the ones where the dealer didn't fix it.

That's what I mean. Have the dealer do it because they will need to make you whole if they mess up. Do not pay out of pocket for the recall.

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Right. But there are people who had the dealer do it, and the dealer did not make them whole. They were stuck out of pocket for new engines

Not sure how that's even possible.. but that sucks [emoji29]

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Lots of documentation of this hence the ambivalence.

Recall comes out --> Subaru "fixes" car for free --> while doing the recall, Subaru mechanic applies too much RTV goop --> RTV goop 'dislodges' while driving afterwards and gets clogged in the oil pump --> motor blows up due to shoddy work done by Subaru --> "hey Subaru, my motor is trashed because of you" --> "nope, not our fault. New motor will be $7k. Get rekt, kid"

End of story.

That's what this entire debate is about.

Typically there is a warranty period after the recall work but yes your right...

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Not sure how you havent seen or heard of the issues here. It's one of the hottest topics on the forum.

People are right to have adverse reactions to the recall considering just SOME of the experiences being relayed.

yep....

I was a little worried about taking my car in for the recall. I found a large dealership that did a lot of service work. I asker the service manager and he said they had done about 20 recalls since the campaign started and none had come back for any issues. He said there were two master techs and they were the only ones performing the work.

So far I've gotten my car back and no issues. Haven't tracked it yet, so that should be the final test.

My advice is once you get the car back, drive it hard and keep it stock for the first few thousand miles. The quicker you can figure out if there are any issues, the harder it'll be for the dealer to deny fault.

There's some risk involved, but in hindsight, I definitely would not pay out of pocket for a mechanic to perform the repair. I'd rather find an experienced dealership and trust that they've done it enough times to not screw it up.

Yes I plan on replacing clutch and TOB during the fix. I DID learn something interesting though. I’ll use the Exedy OEM kit but will have Toyota supply the TOB as I contacted Exedy and they told me their kit includes the old bearing and the new updated one is only available through Toyota. So it sounds like anytime you replace the TOB it’s best to use the one directly from the factory.

If it lasts for thousands of miles you are good. Most I've seen were within a couple hundred. The 2013 sitting in my driveway made it a whole 120 miles after the recall work before it came back to the dealer with rod knock.

One thing people may not know or consider that alarmed me right away was subaru did not have enough people and before anything happened with the recall they started training people and having reps come out. TO me this is totally bogus, I want someone to replace my valves who does it on a regular basis, the reality is subaru was upgrading oil changers to do this type of work and is part of the reason for failure. An idiot working on the motor. Hence the inability to clean sealant correctly, a basic thing for these motors. Subaru had unqualified idiots fixing our cars, thats why the failures.

I can tell you a shop that builds engines for subaru is going to do a fucking helluv a lot better job. Sadly the best bet is get it fixed at subaru and then just get a new car. I just hope mine doesn't blow up before I unloaded it. It basically just sits in the driveway now, I'm completely over it.

I'm still awaiting a 5,000 off a new subaru coupon to make up for my fucked resale and shitty sounding valvetrain and crappily aligned shifter. fu subaru.

The reason you get pushback is it's hard for other people to accept they have been bent over by subaru, or accept the potential for it to happen to them exists.

So you have an issue with Subaru training people to do the job?

You say "I want someone to replace my valves who does it on a regular basis"

but the issue is this type of work is extremely rare.

Rarely is an engine opened up. Even more rare for a dealer tech to ever open up a transmission. If it's broke, rip it out and slap a new one in. Diagnosis or replacement of internal parts NEVER happens with transmissions at the dealership. Even a vast majority of "transmission" shops won't crack the case open. Just rip it out and slap a reman Jasper unit in or whatever.

Same with engines. There is no "engine work". With the exception of an oddball recall like this, the dealer will always find a way to spin it to just throw a new block or complete engine in the car.
"Well, the way the labor rate is, it's just cheaper to replace the whole motor" or whatever else.
Dealerships don't even have machine shops. Much less anyone trained to use the equipment.
It's just R&R (remove and replace, no 'repairing').

Although I've never owned a Subaru before this, I will poke fun at the "lol Subaru - head gasket!" meme.
Even replacing a head gasket is far less involved than this job. When doing a head gasket, the head stays in tact. Just remove it, maybe test it for warpage, and put it right back on. Time the chain and go.