FR-S / BRZ reliability stats

[regal]

Originally Posted by Gen

. A chirping fuel pump is considered the same as the engine throwing a rod. They're interesting to look at but you have to take it with a grain of salt as it tells you more about the customer base than the car itself.

The chirping is normal to me having driven DI diesels, but the cam, rod, head gasket, and DI seal failures are concerning. Even if they are only affecting a fration of a percent now, by 60k-100k it could be much larger.

The original 2.5L Subaru engine had a huge head gasket issue that was never fixed by Subaru because catastrophic failure averaged after warranty expired. The old 80's early 90's Subaru engines literally lasted forever like many Honda motors, hoping the FA20 was designed with similar philosophy. I just don't remember hearing about as many serious engine failures when the AP1 S2k was released.

[mkaresh]

Originally Posted by Gen

This sort of survey also doesn't assign weight to problems based on severity. A chirping fuel pump is considered the same as the engine throwing a rod. They're interesting to look at but you have to take it with a grain of salt as it tells you more about the customer base than the car itself.

Engines hardly ever throw a rod in the first 100k miles. Just measure that, and everything is highly reliable. And unless you have a monstrous sample size the others will be flukes.

This said, we'll have an alternate stat in the future that takes severity into account.

[mkaresh]

We've updated our reliability stats for the FR-S to include owner experiences through June 30, 2013. Another source is about 14 months behind.

Repair frequencies, in terms of repair trips per 100 cars per year:

2013 FR-S: 38, moderate

We have two additional statistics, "Nada-odds" and "Lemon-odds", to indicate the percentage of cars with no repairs in the past year and those that required 3+ trips to the repair shop:

2013 FR-S: 61, < 1

We'll have further updates in August and in November. The more owners participate, the more comprehensive and precise these will be.

To see how competitors compare, and to sign up to help improve this information:

Scion FR-S reliability ratings and comparisons

[pasternak]

Originally Posted by mkaresh

Younger people might be more likely to notice and do something about minor problems than older ones.

I think it skews way more towards: People that buy this car are fussy bastards who nitpick EVERYTHING compared to some schlub buying an iQ.

[rapidcars]

Originally Posted by mkaresh

Only one report of a complete engine failure, and in that case the fuel pump and cam gears were replaced. This failure appears to have occurred before the member joined, so it doesn't factor into our reliability stat for the car.

Not true. Check this link
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15577

I did a quick count and got 7. I was one of them. It all worked out in the end though

[mkaresh]

Originally Posted by rapidcars

Not true. Check this link
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15577

I did a quick count and got 7. I was one of them. It all worked out in the end though

I meant one report through the survey. Seven failures is seven more than there should have been, but a small percentage of the active participants on this forum.

[tacoss23]

Originally Posted by Roadliner

Anything that requires me having to bring the car to a dealer, taking up time that was meant for work/play MATTERS, whether is for a few rattles or a replacement engine.
Thank you for this thread Mkaresh

And you sir are the problem....

This reminds me people that go to fast food places and demand the outmost attention, as if they were dinning in a decent restaurant. You are paying $1 for a burger, you are lucky the guy serving you that burger is wearing pants.

Similarly, people like you, that judge cars (and potentially negatively review them) based on stupid issues like these ones, are a problem in the auto-market.

If you were buying a Camry or Accord, or other daily driver sedan that has been built with no other purpose of reliability, economy and practicality, then by all means....go and complain that your light bulb burned 3 years after you bought the car.

But you bought an entry level sports car....complaining and judging a car's reliability by the amount of "times you had to go" to a dealership is freaking stupid.

That's why we have useless JD Power reliability reports, because people like this genius here, that take their cars and negatively review their vehicle for stupid things. Specially...SPECIALLY, considering this is a sports car, under $30k.

You are not buying a Luxury Daily Driver Sedan for $70k+ to be expecting "minor sounds, issues" to be non-existant. You bought a entry level sports car.

[Minhtyfresh]

Originally Posted by tacoss23

And you sir are the problem....

This reminds me people that go to fast food places and demand the outmost attention, as if they were dinning in a decent restaurant. You are paying $1 for a burger, you are lucky the guy serving you that burger is wearing pants.

Similarly, people like you, that judge cars (and potentially negatively review them) based on stupid issues like these ones, are a problem in the auto-market.

If you were buying a Camry or Accord, or other daily driver sedan that has been built with no other purpose of reliability, economy and practicality, then by all means....go and complain that your light bulb burned 3 years after you bought the car.

But you bought an entry level sports car....complaining and judging a car's reliability by the amount of "times you had to go" to a dealership is freaking stupid.

That's why we have useless JD Power reliability reports, because people like this genius here, that take their cars and negatively review their vehicle for stupid things. Specially...SPECIALLY, considering this is a sports car, under $30k.

You are not buying a Luxury Daily Driver Sedan for $70k+ to be expecting "minor sounds, issues" to be non-existant. You bought a entry level sports car.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. If I order a burger and said "no bacon", there sure as hell better not be bacon.

$30k is no chump change for most people, myself included. "My car chirps like a bird, but its okay because it's an entry level sports car". "my door panels rattle on my commute to work every day, but its okay because its an entry level sports car". Nobody says that, because thats not how quality works.

You may not value your time as much as some others, but making a trip to the dealership to inspect something or fix something is not something you get excited about. There was DAMAGE on my passenger side windows because the window rails were broken when installed from the factory. I ended up at the dealership for 9 HOURS. It was just a thin vertical scratch. Call me a baby, but the windows should NOT be doing that to itself during normal use. The entire experience is part of your experience with the car.

Also - I think you are confused about something. Many luxury brands are built against the SAME quality standards as entry level vehicles. You can't expect these "minor" problems to be non-existant on a $70k either.

[Rayme]

Originally Posted by Minhtyfresh

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. If I order a burger and said "no bacon", there sure as hell better not be bacon.

$30k is no chump change for most people, myself included. "My car chirps like a bird, but its okay because it's an entry level sports car". "my door panels rattle on my commute to work every day, but its okay because its an entry level sports car". Nobody says that, because thats not how quality works.

You may not value your time as much as some others, but making a trip to the dealership to inspect something or fix something is not something you get excited about. There was DAMAGE on my passenger side windows because the window rails were broken when installed from the factory. I ended up at the dealership for 9 HOURS. It was just a thin vertical scratch. Call me a baby, but the windows should NOT be doing that to itself during normal use. The entire experience is part of your experience with the car.

Also - I think you are confused about something. Many luxury brands are built against the SAME quality standards as entry level vehicles. You can't expect these "minor" problems to be non-existant on a $70k either.

What brand, cadillac? Kidding aside, most luxury brands are built with much tighter tolerance than cheap cars. Holds true for lexus versus a Yaris. Everything from panels gaps to interior noise and even glass thickness is much much better in Lexus cars than Toyotas.

[mkaresh]

There are some car sites that focus on complaints. We are not a complaint site. We don't have a "not recommended" or a "cars to avoid" list.

We ask that people simply report whether or not their car required a repair--any repair--a factual question. Either it did or it didn't.

As soon as you do what others do, and ask people to report problems they "considered serious," subjectivity and emotions come into play. The quality of the results becomes questionable. You don't really know what you're measuring anymore.

On the reporting end, we just try to provide accurate repair frequency numbers, together with all of the repair descriptions. We trust that people can look at the number, then look at the descriptions to see what problems are behind the numbers.

Some people will look at the problems and say, "No big deal." Others will say, "I wouldn't want to deal with that." Neither response is inherently correct. Which is why we don't make this judgment ourselves.

[frs10]

i wonder how many of these are due to owners doing things they shouldnt have done and messed up the car that way...

[ZionsWrath]

As far as I know there was only 1 major issue and the was the DI seals. I haven't seen any new occurrences lately on that but I keep my eye on the forum.

What else was there...

BRZ GPS signal, yea that sucks but they have an easy fix and it's not a problem anymore.

Taillights, last I heard they fixed it finally. But I haven't even brought mine in yet I'm too busy enjoying driving it not looking at the taillights.

Minor squeaks and rattles. I think I have seen on every car forum I've been to countless posts about these.

Other than that I can't think of anything. Maybe the next issue will be the axles?

So far the cars are proven reliable but that doesn't mean much for several more years and additional 100k miles. So I'd suggest if you want to know you are buying a reliable car wait until there are 5 year old 100k+ mile examples

[mkaresh]

Originally Posted by frs10

i wonder how many of these are due to owners doing things they shouldnt have done and messed up the car that way...

Virtually none. Unless owners have been messing around with the tail light seals

[bdanisi]

Rear shelf popping. Can someone Ellaborate on this because I think thinking have it but I thought it was my third brake light rattling against the rear window