[Reprobate]

I'm getting caught up on all the stories about Spun Rod Bearings which is all new to me. Here is my contribution for what it may be worth.

2013 AT original owner here, no mods, no racing. My only sin was that I didn't change the oil for 12,000 miles once (yes, I know that is terrible and wont be doing that again). I also regularly do 2 quick paddle downshifts at freeway speeds, I'm not sure if that is a big deal but that's all I can think of to mention.

At 79K miles in May, I got a spun rod bearing. Luckily, Toyota has been covering it under the 100K mile extended warranty. All previous service had been done at a Toyota dealer and the last oil change was only about 2 thousand miles ago.

Toyota had it for 6 weeks and ended up comping a car rental for most of that time. There were a few set backs with the repairs and they had to take the engine out a second time because the timing was off. Without the warranty, the bill would have been about $12,000, not to mention a car rental for 6 weeks and a couple of tows. I was told that a lot of the delay was due to parts being shipped from Subaru.

I got it back, drove it a total of 80 miles over 2 days and it died on the road smelling like gas. Toyota repaired a "high pressure injectors seal and O rings". Got it back 3 days later, drove about 180 miles over 3 days and today, it died again with the smell of gas (coming from the drivers side of the engine). I will hear from Toyota tomorrow about what went wrong this time.

I love driving this car and had planned to keep it for the long haul. At this point, I'm thinking my best option is to sell it once it's "fixed" with the remaining warranty (until next July or 20,000 more miles) and basically new engine. I also put in about $800 of parts for general maintenance while they had the engine out and they didn't charge me labor.

The Mechanic Foreman at Toyota stated that 1) I should be fine to keep it (of course!) 2) He did not know this to be a common problem, and 3) I should change the oil every 3000 miles because "people that take their FR-S to the track have less problems with the engine because they are always changing their oil".

I will continue to research around here but some of my questions are:

Are the newer versions of the car considered to be significantly more reliable now?

Have they given me updated parts that actually improve reliability?

Why didn't Toyota just give me a used engine and save me and them a ton of time and labor? (My conspiracy theory is that they assigned this free warranty work to a new or less skilled mechanic).

Any feedback or thoughts are appreciated.