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I bought an early production 2013 FR-S MT from the original owner almost 2 years ago with 48K miles on it. Car is totally stock and used as a daily driver during the non-road salt months. A few months ago the car had about 65K and my wife filled it with 87 octane gas. I was burning it off the next day hoping to get down to about a half tank so I could top it off with premium. I was running it through the gears about 1/2 throttle shifting around 5500 rpm when I got the CEL/skid light combo. I did the fuel thing and probably ran a full tank of premium through it before checking the code because I figured the knock sensor just pulled timing from low octane and everything would be happy after 20 key starts or however many it takes for the light to go off after a fault is inactive. Code is P0018 and the limp mode power reduction is hardly noticeable while obeying traffic laws. Drifting in the rain is still an option though. I swapped cam position sensors and the code didn't go along for the ride. As I sit here typing, I guess I should have swapped ocvs also...
Car now has 69K and at the Toyota dealer for valve spring recall. I agreed to pay list price for parts if they were installed during the valve spring job. Started out as sparkplugs and now I'll also have a shiny new waterpump and serpentine belt. When I dropped it off I said there was an active P0018 and they should inspect the camshaft actuators while the cams were out. I also asked them to reflash with current software because the windows for setting P0018 have been opened up after 2013.
I received a voicemail Thursday that my car was back together and it drove fine. They had done the reflash and P0018 came back during the test drive. They said they could replace the bank 2 exhaust actuator for $618.31 + tax and wanted to know how I would like to proceed. I called back Friday and said I don't need the car this weekend and we'll talk more on Monday when the head service writer and technician who did the work will both be in. Bank 2 exhaust would be P0019 for those still following along. The last thing I want to do is drive it away from the dealer with a CEL and have it explode 5 miles down the road due to debris in the oil.
After plenty of reading on this forum over the last couple days, I see that I'll be buying an ecu to solve my P0018. Is $500 too cheap and I should expect closer to $600? The list price agreement is off the table going forward.
I'm going to insist on seeing the camshaft learning values on their techstream before throwing any parts at it. Assuming the camshaft actuator didn't pop a spring, will the learning values in my old reflashed ecu be between 52-72 intake and 78-98 exhaust? If the cams move together during an rpm sweep, are the actuators fine? Do the cams move primarily due to engine rpm or does load have an influence?
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