2013 FRS Reliability?
 

Hello everyone, I'm sorry if ask a lot of questions I'll be buying a 2013 Scion FRS this week, I wanted to ask for your opinions on the reliability of the car? Is it well built & durable for long & short distance trips & as a DD, I would like to know of your experience with the FRS overall, I've had a Camry & a toyota fj cruiser & all I ever did was basic maintenance, I hope the frs is like these also! :)

Im at 60k almost. Canyon runs almost every weekend plus autox occasionally, dd around town and many long road trips as well (las vegas, socal multiple times, bay area over 5x a month).

No issues beyond getting a taillight replaced.

THATS AMAZING TO HEAR!! I'm glad you've come that far!

It's not that amazing. It's Toyota, only 60k, 2013 ingenuity, Spartan design meaning less parts to go wrong and a small 2.0 liter boxer.


It'd be more amazing if they weren't reliable w/ that combination.

I'm at 31K with about 10K of that being supercharged. Only issue I have is the airbag light comes on. Been too lazy to go to the dealership to get it looked at but mechanically I have had no issues.

After the break in period, I took from California, through Nevada, into Utah through the national park and back again. Loved it. Even got to experience how much better the car runs on 93 versus 91 on the way back.

Well about 50/50ish with Subaru in parts based on the BoM from the relevant thread. Seems we always have to point this out when people think it's only one or the other.

I've definitely had more issues with my American made Subies than my Japanese made Toyotas so wasn't really sure what to expect with this car.

Well its a japanese made Subie so its all good

Boosted on an Innovate SC since 34.4K. I autocross 2-4 times a month. Drive it daily and drove from Cali to Nebraska and back for nationals this year. Solid.

I don't have a lot of miles on it yet, but I've had my 2013 for a year now.


Had to get the ECU updated under a service bulletin to make idle more stable and I do have some issues with the power windows, but that'll all be fixed under a TSB. Just waiting for the service bulletin to make it north of the border.


For the most part, and issues unique to 2013's have been fixed in service bulletins that you can have done for free under warranty. Most of them involve minor changes on the production line.

I have 35,000 miles on mine. No problems at all except for it came with a bad transmission which was replaced with no problems.
Unlike my VW that was in the shop more than it was on the road it's first year.

auto or manual?

Passenger airbag when no passenger? This has been found to happen if you have your cell phone or something else like that laying in the passenger seat. Something about the airbag sensor and electronic devices directly on top of the seat..

It's a manual. Seems like there have been a lot of problems with syncros on the earlier cars.
But it will be replaced under warranty if you are nice to them.

Ya, I was baffled why every time I put my phone on the seat to charge the light came on. Turns out the seat uses an electronic proximity type sensor instead of a mechanical contact switch. Any electronic device can set it off.

I'm currently at 44,000kms in about 16 months of ownership. No issues whatsoever. However, my car does see literally no abuse and I commute 95% highway so it is extremely easy on the car. I plan to get at least 300,000 kms out of this car with hopefully no issues.

Would be nice if people posted their build date. Mine was built May 2013.

32k miles, daily driven, been driven relatively hard (I'm not that good of a driver though) never been back to the dealership.

May 2014 for me. So one of the "late" model 14s with all the bugs worked out (well most at any rate)

I would say if you get a 2013, as long as you make sure to get the rough idle TSB taken care of you will be fine. The rough idle TSB is the only way to get the updated tune to fix the direct injection seal issue.

I have a 2013 with 30k miles. No issues. It was a pain to get that tune fixed though.

I call it a Toyota and Subaru interchangeably because it's both. I happened to say Toyota in this example.

Well, majority of the issues as it seems appear to be with early production cars. Basically the pre-order cars - the ones out on the road late 2012. Being a May 2013 build, hopefully the early issues were resolved by then. Still no resolution for our chirping fuel pump though. I don't think there are any TSB's in Canada.

TSB Rev2 fixed my crickets. I'm told they'll return but haven't for 3,000+ miles running the same Shell 92 w/10% corn. Otherwise no issues since new w/6,000+ miles, produced 05/2013.

I spent a lot of time researching before deciding to buy and found that the body panel alignment and poor ECU tune issues seemed to be the very first cars, tail lights and seals were up until mid 13s and the window track problems still into the early 14s.
There are of course the "know issue" items (tranny, throw out bearings, etc)that seem to pop up at random regardless of build date but in the overall scheme of things these are relatively rare.

The fuel pump TSB does apply to Canada but I didn't bother as I only had the issue for 3 days after using some crappy gas, it isn't really an "issue" and the TSB action doesn't fix it anyway.

In many of the cases this forum has created a false indication as to exactly how bad some of the issues actually were. The person yelling loudest always gets the most attention so those without issues go unnoticed.
I bet there are thousands of people out there driving with one or more of the problems that have never even noticed it since they do not read forums!

I bought mine May 30, 2012 BTW.

05/2012 purchase here (First 86 group). 50K miles here. No issues. I probably could get the fuel pump fix done but other than that nothing has been done under warranty.

Also I purchased min May 31, 2012 FWIW. Build date March 2012.

I've dealt with almost all the major issues.

I've had the car in the shop about 10 times for check engine lights regarding cam gears, bad ecu, and oil seals.

I am also currently dealing with throw-out bearing squeal (which will in due time result in a replaced clutch/new bearing. Out of basic warranty

I've replaced the fuel pump 3 times for chirps and gave up after the third time (2nd gen pump).

I did not drive this car hard at all, except for the occasional canyon run.

I purchased mine March 2013 and have roughly 44k miles on the vehicle.

Still love the car, but do question it's long-term reliability.

Bought mine the day they went on sale. Took delivery April '12. No issues other than taillights condensation, keeps returning. I'm OK as long as they keep replacing them AFTER my warranty ends this April.

Purchased mine in June of 2012 with only 9,600 mi thus far. Just don't drive much and my work is close. Had to replace on e taillight. Have the beloved crickets but could care less to waste my time getting that fixed. I hear a mildly low toned 'rattle' when idling with AC on. Not too concerned about it unless this thread says I should be. All and all it should be a great car. I will be happy if this car is anything like my old 2005 tC that had only 87k without one single issue.

I'm at 35k and I haven't had any mechanical issues.

Occasionally my car honks (makes a honking noise) when I depress the clutch to shift but only occasionally. The dealer want to replace the throwout bearing but it never does it during their test drive. It's so inconsistent that I can't make it happen at the dealership. Oh well.


p.s. for the OP, I'm @ 41k and everything's been very reliable except:

-Slightly un-flush body panel on right side door to front quarter but I stopped caring.
-Shift honk as mentioned
-I accidentally let the battery die twice and now it has a dead cell and struggles to hold a enough of a charge for more than 24 hours to start the car. But this is my fault.

If they want to then let them!
Almost 100% that is the problem

They want to but they won't unless they can reproduce the problem. That's the issue. If it starts doing it with some consistency then I will drive there, tell the manager to get in and I'll replicate it for him. But now, it might do it once or twice a week.

Well that sucks!

:word:There will always be one bad cookie in the batch

May 8th 2012 first 86er 20k plenty of track time no problems yet.

30K miles - not.one.single.problem

7,400 miles since Aug '13 issues (nothing earth shattering and not too nitpicky):


Once saw a little condensation last winter while removing melted snow from right tail light.
Some chirping.
Not all iPod/iPhone album art appears while using the USB connection or streaming through Bluetooth.

No. Something else.

I wish it were only a "few" bad cookies.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15577

Unfortunately it's around 280, and those are the ones on the forum. Who knows how many have actually had the issues/will have them in the future?