Shifting Lanes' Driver Mod Project Car
 

I just joined the BRZ family!

I bought a used 2013 Subaru BRZ with 93K miles on it on 3/31/2018. During the test drive and the first week of ownership I truly fell in love. The firm ride, light steering, and wonderful shifter reminded me a lot of my old Mistubishi Evo.

The whole point of buying the car was to use it as a project/autocross car for our Shifting Lanes YouTube channel. I wanted to use it as a platform where I can document the "DriverMod", where I start at the track noob level and evolve into something better.

Unfortunately, six days into BRZ ownership, something pretty terrible happened. Long story short: the car spit up a P0300 code (Random misfires) where it no longer starts, I'm afraid it might be as serious as a spun bearing. The dealer towed it back to their location (2 hours away!) so they can diagnose it. At the time of this writing I have not heard anything back from them.

I'll be updating this thread with new information and episodes once they're up. For now, check out EP1 and don't forget to sub!

EP1: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68QYn5lKieo&t"]We Bought The Cheapest BRZ In The U.S. And It Broke Down 6 Days Later - YouTube[/ame]

6:15 ft86club call-out

We famous now




(also interested to see where this is going. car looks clean as hell on the outside)

Thanks! FT86Club has a way of helping me out massively while at the same time making me think that a slight breeze will make my BRZ need a new short block.

UPDATE 2: Dealership called and mentioned that the Cylinder 1 coil pack is getting replaced. They state that it should be good after this and can be picked up later in the afternoon!

They're stomaching the bill for this, as well as the towing bill. I'm supremely grateful for all of this but I'm concerned that this will happen again in the short future (hopefully more than 400 miles this time)

UPDATE 3: This is quickly becoming THE WORST "build thread" on FT86club. But I want to provide an update so I can help myself document every single thing that's happening to the "cheapest BRZ" as I move along into making this into something that will make me a better autocrosser.

Got another call from the dealer. They mentioned that they changed out the spark plugs and the coilpacks (I forgot to ask which cylinder specifically) and they're still running into misfire issues. They mentioned they will be looking into the valve springs to see if they've "dropped"

Hopefully I'll have another update by tomorrow (4/17/18) afternoon

UPDATE 4 4/17/18: Dealer called me again. Since the coilpack and spark plug replacement didn't work, they opened the valve cover and found some pieces were broken. If I can recall exactly, they mentioned the roller rockers, in the least, were broken and laying in the head. The camshaft also has some scoring on the surface.

They proceeded to ask if I have ever over-revved the engine or have ever mis-shifted, noting that these engines can be destroyed by these instances. I said that, in the ~400 miles I've driven this thing I have never over-revved or mis-shifted and that I've babied this thing regardless of the already high mileage. He stated that this was a question they have to ask before going into the "black-box" to see if this was ever over-revved.

He's looking into his contacts to see if anyone has seen this type of failure before, because this is his first time hearing about this. They might be contacting Subaru HQ regarding this situation.

If memory serves rocker failures are not at all unheard of, particularly on the earlier year models. I find his protest at "never having heard of this" a bit disingenuous.

Yep, there's several other posts on this very forum about it and it's an item addressed in most engine build services. Early model years definitely have a possibility of rocker arm failures. There's no way he's "never heard of it" unless he was living under a rock.

Working in the service industry, I understand why they are either lying about this OR why they are telling the truth.

They could be telling the truth if they don't service many BRZ's and it may have just fallen under their radar. If you've only serviced 100 BRZ's all year, it's unlikely that you've come across this issue recently enough for anyone to remember it. If you did, it was ignored and handled as a one-off and forgotten about.

Alternatively, they are lying about it. This is more likely and there are many reasons why they do it. First, even if you have seen something similar before, the underlying issue could be completely different so you could be erroneous. Next, admitting to a known issue tends to make customers expect that it will be covered for free and why would corporate or the dealership eat that cost when they can pass it to the customer? Finally, the company you represent doesn't want to have users demanding a recall for known issues because it costs millions to deal with that.

UPDATE 5, 4/18/2018: GOOD NEWS!!! Dealership called me back, said he spoke to the district manager. They will replace the broken rocker arms on the left side (driver side). They will also look at the rest of the engine to see if there are further damage to other engine components.

For further clarification, it is the left side of the engine that will get the rocker arms replaced, the dealer might have misspoke regarding which cylinder was mis-firing. I'll provide a video update once I get the car back. In hindsight, I do remember that side of the engine making clicking sounds that was fairly loud, but I just assumed that was normal.

I looked into the service bulletins (https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...84247-0699.pdf) and there was one to replace the rocker arms, which is a result of a loud tapping sound. My hypothesis is that this SB was never done, and since tapping sounds is a byproduct of loose tolerances, that this part was basically fatigued and cracked after 93K miles. This is totally just my guess. If you've ever done this SB please let me know, and how it has affected you.

They'll provide another update today (hopefully) about the extent of the damage and the ETA to fix this whole thing. I'll update once I hear back

UPDATE 6, 4/25/2018: I made episode 2 discussing the valve rocker problem, and also 4 other problems I've found.

EP2: https://youtu.be/Kv0SQpsDe9U

UPDATE 7: 5/21/2018: I FINALLY GOT IT BACK!!! It has been such a long journey (40 days in the shop) but I finally got it back. I haven't gotten the official list of the stuff that went wrong just yet, but basically it's a completely brand new engine! I don't talk about that in this week's video, so hopefully I can provide an update for next week's video

The folks at Subaru of Cherry Hill really helped me out on this entire thing. They coordinated with Subaru corporate during this whole thing. Now I'm going to spend the next 1000 miles carefully breaking this new engine in and swapping out the oil.

This is still not a build channel yet :thumbdown: but we're going to get there eventually!!!

EP 3: https://youtu.be/fbVdTh_XRQM

UPDATE 8: 6/6/2018: I bought some eBay BRZ Series Blue replica lip, side skirts, and rear apron and did a DIY. I think the results are pretty good given how cheap everything was. Altogether the complete aero kit came out to $270.

EP5: https://youtu.be/Cas6dNwfsgM

hot damn what a deal. a cheap used '13 high mileage brz. Only to get warrantied with a brand new block.

Post some pics