J02 valve spring recall, Toyota will not work on car
 

I got my registration renewal notice in the mail and it said I have to do the #J02 (valve spring) recall before I can renew my registration. I took my car to Toyota (after explaining very clearly to them that I have an aftermarket turbo setup), and now they are saying they can't do the recall. They said they had an inspector come out and determine it is too much liability for them to perform the work. They want me to return the car to stock before they will do the recall.


I have a Works stage 2 kit. It would be very time consuming and cost a bunch of money to return the car to stock. I'm absolutely not doing it. I contacted the ARB on the registration notice, but they can only help with payment issues with the dealership.



Has anybody ran across this issue, and if so what did you do? Am I going to be forced to return my car to stock, have them do work, then put it all back on just to pull the stupid engine? I don't give a shit about the recall, I would just take my chances if that wan an option. :mad0259:

Just get a stock header and intake drive over the car with a CEL.

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Not sure if you are familiar with the Works kit but there is more to it than that. I'd have to take off the top mount intercooler and all the intake plumbing coming from the filter housing, as well as the coolant plumbing coming from the front mount heat exhanger, reroute the coolant and oil plumbing going through the turbo, remove the turbo, remove the up and down pipes to reinstall the over pipe, ...theres probably more since its been a few years since I did the install. It's not just a simple turbo kit that reroutes the exhaust to slap in a turbo. It doesn't install on the header, you can actually use the stock header. The up pipe comes off the header up to the turbo, then down pipe bolts up to the mid pipe.



The kit is awesome and makes quite a bit of power, but it wasn't an easy install.

I totally mixed it up with the AVO kit haha.

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Hey hey,
If you installed the kit yourself and are mechanically inclined, give us a call at the shop and we can walk you through the easiest method we have found for this. It leaves the oil lines and water lines in place and isn't difficult at all. We do it in about 3-4 hours each way.

Thanks guys! I am mechanically inclined enough to install the kit myself, and work on helicopters for a living:iono:. I'll give you guys a call tomorrow. What about the exhaust? I don't have any of the stock parts.

Call some other dealers.

This is the game we play, unfortunately. Best of luck getting the kit uninstalled, sounds like a real pain; at least it's a one and done deal.

I was in the same situation with my Edelbrock supercharger. Dealer would not perform the recall unless the engine was returned to stock. After waiting almost a year and seeing if there were any work-arounds, I ended up getting the supercharger uninstalled and returning the car to stock. Got recall done, sold the supercharger. If anything goes wrong with the recall work and you re-install the turbo, they're going to blame the turbo unless you return it to stock again for them to see what the issue is. I didn't want to deal with that.

https://youtu.be/f2h7ilbEewI

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That is the way things are in our “its not my fault” world we live in. There is to much liability on that shop to work on it. Not to mention it is going to add additional man hours to that job that Toyota is not going to pay. If they did work on your car it would probably put their profit down to $0 and triple their liability. Not smart business decision. If you cant not do the work there are a lot of performance shops out there now that can.

Don't do the recall, the mechanics are not trained to work on Suburu FRS engine, they caused me 7000 in damaged Rod

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The dealer should be able to have you sign a waiver to opt out of the recall.

It is classed as a safety recall. They can not have you "opt out". You of course can just ignore it (unless you are in California) but there is now way they can officially support that.

BRZs had failure rates at the same level as Toyotas. It wasn't a training issue just a carelessness one. There were even several failures with factory sealed engines because the robots couldn't even get the sealant right.


You said it was a year between the work and the failure but how many miles was it? You have established it is a rod or is that still just a guess?

There were 11000km and it was a rod as diagnosed by the shop.

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Not a spun bearing?

I have to check to confirm, what difference world it make to my case?

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I'd register that car in another state before I did that. Lol. Montana looks nice. At least take a little bit of money away from California.

A thrown rod can be attributed to many other things such as an overrev downshift and is actually a pretty rare (not unheard of but rare) result of the botched seal job. A spun bearing is almost always the result and is much cleaner to tie into the rest of the failures. All in all it just takes one more argument away from the dealer if it is the bearing.

I had my clutch go out on the freeway in the middle of traffic due to the fork pivot not secured properly during the recall. To add insult to injury the rods started knocking just before that. I'm having someone else do the work. My trust in dealers is 0% however they DO talk a good game "Oh yeah! We've done hundreds of these with no issues".....

You're having an independent shop do the J02 recall? How is that documented and will the CA DMV accept documentation from a non-dealer for the work?

No! a dealer did the recall and totally destroyed my car. Didn't tighten the pivot at the clutch fork and car broke in the MIDDLE of the freeway in LA at rush hour And that was just after the rods started knocking due to the sealant clogging the oil pump and tubes. Total Fu#k story.

Oh ok - I misunderstood (or didn't read the whole story). So you're having the repairs caused by the dealer doing the recall done by someone else. Did you go back to the dealer to complain? Are they going to accept any responsibility?



That sucks, man - sorry to hear that.

i haven’t heard back yet. I emailed the service manager yesterday

False. Tuners and modders tend to ruin whatever they touch. Toyota is correct in not dealing with the hot mess a home brew fool has created.

Please tell us in detail how this played out. This is my nightmare, where my car dies in heavy traffic. How did you get out of it ?

I had to wait for a tow truck. A CHP officer came and blocked traffic then helped me push the car to the side of the freeway after a 1\2 hour wait. Then the AAA dispatcher told me I couldn't ride with the tow truck driver due to covid and I asked well so he leaves me on the side of the freeway?

Well that isn't our problem you'll need to try to get an UBER.

A 100 dollar bill told the driver to let me ride in the truck.

??? You say my statement is false then basically agree with me on why Toyota (It is not really Toyota it is a private company that pays to use the Toyota brand) is not working on his modified car?

I will agree thee are a lot of Tunners and Modders that do lest than quality work. There are also a LOT of Tunners and Modders that do great work and improve the product for their specific application/wants. Not sure where in the USA you are at but here in the Metroplex there are a lot of good tuning shops that turn out a quality product.

How long after the recall did this happen? I had my recall done at Toyota in Irvine and my engine is doing ok, but just curious.

3K miles about