Another throw-out bearing issue

[gt86yasss]

Originally Posted by churchx

Twins MT transmission is adequate for cars in stock form. Very similar aisin AZ6 trannies are also in other cars in somewhat similar class cars like RX7, S15, MX5, S2000. So you turbo car way out of power & torque it was engineered for and complain about weak tranny? Please provide statistics about enormous failure rate for twins tranny prior calling it weak. Eg. by data from these dealerships, every 10th has their tranny failed and such after unreasonably short mileage. And that from those, that had failed transmission, majority just daily driven, with insignificantly small number abusing it via forced induction/track use and such. Then i'd be convinced that indeed, twins tranny is too weak and sucks too much and it's snafu of toyobaru.
Even FA20 engine main difference from predecessors like EJ20 was risen efficiency .. by removing extra excess material from multiple engine parts to lessen losses and lower weight. Should we fault toyobaru too that we cannot get 500hp from it if it never was sold non-NA? Should we fault it for oiling & fueling problems on slicks on track with high side-Gs, if it was never sold as race car?
From text after claim of "weak tranny" it seems that you are about not weakness, but rather about something like hard to shift into second or alike, or hard to shift in general due some clutch drag? Yes, it would be nice without such common for twins ill-trait as hard 2nd when cold, but as it's mostly about cold engages during first drive and goes away after short drive, imho it's severity is overblown. Or you are talking about some specific problem that you had but others didn't or specific bad dealership problem you had, but you still generalize and write off car model as bad in general everybody else should stay clear of and avoid at any cost?
Is this car faultless? Hell no. Is it good overall package in it's class for it's price if i weight out pros & cons? It is (at least in my subjective view). I just don't think that some of suggested "ways to fix" such as mass action lawsuit to toyobaru, or design changes that will feature as byproduct steep price increase, will rob some of it's pros, would be smartest choice by toyobaru to make. I wouldn't consider this car if had weighted 200kg more. I wouldn't consider this car if it had costed at 1.5-2x cost. And i wouldn't blame toyobaru as manufacturer if my gt86 fails due me putting much more abuse willingly (such as overboosting w/o accompanied mods to eng.internals/tranny/clutch and so on, or tracking w/o oil cooler & better brakes and so on). Twins are NOT racecar. They weren't designed/engineered/manufactured as such. I'd call them rather "good enough", "good price/performancy", "good value" car that provides me unexpectedly lot of fun for money they cost. Your experience was different, bad luck. But is generalization warranted that they all are bad and every owner goes through many hardships like you did?

I can ask you the same thing, can you provide data to show the percentage of transmission issues that were caused by abusive drivers and forced induction?
My personal experience, my friend has a 16 WRX with tune and exhaust only and his car has throw-out-bearing issue. My 86 only had a catback and it had new engine new transmission @20k miles and they couldn't fix the problem at the end. You're right about this car is not flawless and we shouldn't have too high expectation, but transmission is a BIG component of a sport car, isn't that what our cars are advertised for?

[churchx]

gt86yasss: of course i don't have statistics either, just noticing eg. threads on failed 4th or 5th for high power builds, or very glad posts in some threads about retrofitting some known very strong trannies, or thread about PAR gearset and so on .. but those mostly are from high power builds owners. Otherwise i don't see very numerous posts and threads about failed MT gearboxes on NA twins, even if they (probably) outnumber FI builds imho 25-50x times. Notorious cold 2nd? Yes. Frequent failures if NA at enormous rates to blame on Toyobaru/Canada/Aliens/commies? No. Hence i have subjective impression, that it's reliability while not bullet proof, but certainly not as bad as to "Surprised that there isn't a lawsuit against Subaru/Toyota about it yet!", and "well known to have weak transmission, they can literally fail for no good reason. That's a quality control issue". That sounds way too generalized and spoken to put them at much worse light then they are, hence i spammed back some offtopic about my opposite impression/thoughts about that. BTW, i'm sure that all cars have some specific to them issues or different specific rates of failing parts. Often mentioned in forums related to those. Twins don't stand out in my eyes as very unreliable cars among all the other new cars in market to warrant extra bashing. Also one should be careful trying to evaluate reliability by forums only. Simply because per one that will post about some failure there might be hundred more not bothering to report that "all works fine", as result generating impression that certain failure might be more frequent then it really is. In US according to wiki during 2012-2017 there were sold ~ 58K twins. I don't see hundreds of threads/posts/reports about failed transmissions to start think about them being fundamentally bad and for failure rate being abnormally high. Also back to TOB failure for OP that started this thread. You don't think that TOB NEVER fails on other cars, do you?

[gt86yasss]

Originally Posted by churchx

gt86yasss: of course i don't have statistics either, just noticing eg. threads on failed 4th or 5th for high power builds, or very glad posts in some threads about retrofitting some known very strong trannies, or thread about PAR gearset and so on .. but those mostly are from high power builds owners. Otherwise i don't see very numerous posts and threads about failed MT gearboxes on NA twins, even if they (probably) outnumber FI builds imho 25-50x times. Notorious cold 2nd? Yes. Frequent failures if NA at enormous rates to blame on Toyobaru/Canada/Aliens/commies? No. Hence i have subjective impression, that it's reliability while not bullet proof, but certainly not as bad as to "Surprised that there isn't a lawsuit against Subaru/Toyota about it yet!", and "well known to have weak transmission, they can literally fail for no good reason. That's a quality control issue". That sounds way too generalized and spoken to put them at much worse light then they are, hence i spammed back some offtopic about my opposite impression/thoughts about that. BTW, i'm sure that all cars have some specific to them issues or different specific rates of failing parts. Often mentioned in forums related to those. Twins don't stand out in my eyes as very unreliable cars among all the other new cars in market to warrant extra bashing. Also one should be careful trying to evaluate reliability by forums only. Simply because per one that will post about some failure there might be hundred more not bothering to report that "all works fine", as result generating impression that certain failure might be more frequent then it really is. In US according to wiki during 2012-2017 there were sold ~ 58K twins. I don't see hundreds of threads/posts/reports about failed transmissions to start think about them being fundamentally bad and for failure rate being abnormally high. Also back to TOB failure for OP that started this thread. You don't think that TOB NEVER fails on other cars, do you?

Again, I can make a similar counter-argument that not everyone owns this car with transmission issues would create a post here, your 2x-5x times impression could be very wrong too. Just think about it this way, why they made a new TOB design? Because they found the old TOB prematured in many cases, it's that simple. FYI WRX is also known to have TOB issue. Some people may say at least they are trying to fix the car under warranty, but in my own case, if I could charge them for the time that I spent at the dealership and talked to Toyota corporate to prove that my 86 was a lemon, they should have paid me an extra thousand dollars, but ofc they didn't because it's not required by the law.
If your argument is that no car is perfect, then you're right and we just have to suck it up.

[ZionsWrath]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Lawsuit for what? They recognized the design issue and corrected it. If it fails within warranty they replace it free. If it fails out of warranty it is like any other wear part in any car. People really feel a need to sue over a $100 repair? No wonder cars cost so much. Foolish.

Damn,need that info to have TOB replaced for $100.

PM me plz

[chipmunk]

Originally Posted by churchx

chipmunk: but if one failed for eg. you, but worked fine for 60K+ miles for 200 other owners, is lawsuit really THAT justified? That sue everybody for anything attitude is reason why in US everybody now can have only lukewarm coffee at McD & starbucks. So we now need overengineered cars too at double cost to incorporate into price much higher then necessary strength, by extra order reduced failure rate and for potential lawsuits costs against manufacturers, right.

Hi,
My powertrain is stock. Only aftermarket parts I have on my car are the cabin & air filters and floor mats. Clutch bearing is only in use when the clutch is pressed. So whatever the miles on the car, the clutch bearing has only a fraction of that. Let's stick to the same category instead of generalized all lawsuits. When was the last time your wheel bearing went on your car? Or how about crank thrust bearing? Or journal bearings? Why is the clutch bearing an exception?

[churchx]

chipmunk: I replaced right front wheel bearing(with hub) at 30K miles, after it started to hum at sideload during turn. As it was past 3 years warranty, i paid myself for part & replacement work. And don't have any intention to sue toyota for that or blame car model in general.
Your case described in OP sounds to me more like VERY bad luck, or that your dealership techs managed to botch something during replacement (as 2nd low-mileage TOB failure is way less statistically probable). I'd just double check when ordering replacement if it's new .. and possibly replace at other shop . But witch hunt against toyobaru imho is excessive.

[chipmunk]

Originally Posted by churchx

chipmunk: I replaced right front wheel bearing(with hub) at 30K miles, after it started to hum at sideload during turn. As it was past 3 years warranty, i paid myself for part & replacement work. And don't have any intention to sue toyota for that or blame car model in general.
Your case described in OP sounds to me more like VERY bad luck, or that your dealership techs managed to botch something during replacement (as 2nd low-mileage TOB failure is way less statistically probable). I'd just double check when ordering replacement if it's new .. and possibly replace at other shop . But witch hunt against toyobaru imho is excessive.

Dropping the transmission is not the same as taking the wheel off...?
In a way, I must be lucky that it failed before the warranty, and that my dealer service department is quite amazing.

Response from SoA attached.

[ZionsWrath]

Originally Posted by churchx

chipmunk: I replaced right front wheel bearing(with hub) at 30K miles, after it started to hum at sideload during turn. As it was past 3 years warranty, i paid myself for part & replacement work. And don't have any intention to sue toyota for that or blame car model in general.
Your case described in OP sounds to me more like VERY bad luck, or that your dealership techs managed to botch something during replacement (as 2nd low-mileage TOB failure is way less statistically probable). I'd just double check when ordering replacement if it's new .. and possibly replace at other shop . But witch hunt against toyobaru imho is excessive.

I get your point but I don't see how that applies to the TOB "issue". The TOB seems to be a "pattern failure". While every failure is not cause for a lawsuit, it is important for consumers to make known issues with their vehicles.

The TOB has had quite a number of posts from drivers of all types. The fact there is a TSB and a revised part number tells me there is an issue with original part. Is that cause for a lawsuit, I don't know. At least in USA people will try to sue for anything. Did you see recently Subaru settled a class action about the 2.5 turbo wrx/sti motor? There were probably tons of people posting those people with engine failures abused their cars, pay to play, etc.

My own experience I have a first shipment 2013 BRZ. I have 50-something thousand miles. 20k DD in first year, rest is highway drives to track days and weekend spirited use. I have had no mechanical failures with my car yet.

EDIT: I forgot, I did have coil pack failures. But that is something to add about my point of "pattern failures". A lot of track users have this failure. And a few not track people as well. There is a revised part number for this part. Personally I replaced it on my own dime, ~$80 as I was tracking the car and didn't want to fight with Subaru about something like that.

[churchx]

well, changing wheel hub, means also redoing alignment, so it's not like just changing wheel, but of course dropping tranny is more work to do (hence the reason why i used one of gearbox related work as opportunity to put some tranny/clutch related aftermarket goodies in, eg. syncrotech synchros/velox clutch fork&pivot .. and new TOB bearing just for any case. Had no problems even with previous being original old "bad" one, that lasted w/o any glitch for me much longer then both TOBs for you and even including bad track abuse (eg. initially not rev-matching downshifts via heel&toe, and sometimes using clutch drops to intentionally cause rear slide) (hence my guesses about bad luck or something botched up during replacement rather then generalization about all TOB bearings of twins being crap). But it being cheap, for peace of heart, why not preemptively replace at any rare occasion transmission is dropped).

[fang_gt86]

Originally Posted by ZionsWrath

Damn,need that info to have TOB replaced for $100.

PM me plz

I was quoted $1.2k just for labor! I said f**k it and did it myself. Ended up spending about $600, couple pack of beers and some minor bruises.

[ermax]

Originally Posted by MrDinkleman

So, I just got my 2016 FRS back from the dealer after having the TOB replaced. I can confirm that the original TOB does not look like either picture. I looked at the invoice and it had the upgraded TOB part number. So, thanks to the members here I am happy to know I got the right bearing. The weird thing is, when I first talked to the service concierge (?) (the first guy who points you to the actual service writer) he said he had never heard of a TOB going out so early, although he admitted he didn't see many FRSs. OTOH, the service writer called the parts desk and told them to "be sure it was the upgraded part they had in stock" so he must be quite aware of the problem.
When I picked up my car, both of them told me the bearing was REALLY messed up. But it doesn't look really messed up; just messed up. I was expecting it to be wobbly or bent or something. But it "just" spins freely. It's a little loose but it sounds dry as hell.
I didn't have them change anything else because I eventually want to install a lightweight flywheel. Didn't see point in spending another $350 for new clutch, pressure plate, and machined stock flywheel.
In the end, it cost $820.

The service guys seem to always say, "we've never seen this problem". Then you talk to the techs doing the actual work and get the real scoop. The service guys seem to also be PR guys. They don't want to say, "oh yeah these things go all the time" and then have you tell all your friends and then no one wants to buy the car. I was good friends with a tech at Acura who hooked me up with all sorts of used parts. B18C short block, two trannies, ect, ect... all free. Anyways, I could cut through all the BS and get the truth with him. I wish I had a good hookup like this at Toyota.

[2BUBRZ]

Originally Posted by chipmunk

If I know for sure that the fork is the origin of all the issues, then yes, $210+ is worth it. But if the bearing still is an issue even with all the revisions, then I'm not sure if I want to spend that much.
By the way, has anyone bought the forged forks and have not had a single throw-out bearing problem since?

At ~60k mikes i replaced the old bearing with an updated one, brand new exedy clutch, and forged fork after a long issue with a local Subaru dealership where the car was purchased from. Long story short they agreed to do the work under warranty then went back on their word after holding my car for 3 weeks. It’s a long story I have them recorded agreeing to do the work etc. It’s a mess that if anyone knows any lawyers that could help with that would be great lol. regardless back on topic! Old bearing lasted ~60k miles on stock everything. I replaced the bearing with everything I stated and no more than 3k miles later it started to go out again. I’m now ~5k miles into the new one and it’s completely shot. I have no answers or help. The guy I took it to will not help me out in any way and wants full labor to do it all again when I just paid him to do it. He’s a very well trusted car guy around here and knows what he’s doing. This is my second 86 so I’m not new to these cars or a manual... just putting my experience out there....

[Tbor]

Would this same issue cause my clutch to squeak when pressing in and releasing? I havent noticed any performance issues, but when sitting in neutral I can easy replicate it and hear it squeaking when pushing in and releasing.

[chipmunk]

Originally Posted by Tbor

Would this same issue cause my clutch to squeak when pressing in and releasing? I havent noticed any performance issues, but when sitting in neutral I can easy replicate it and hear it squeaking when pushing in and releasing.

I'm afraid the symptoms do sound like it. Under 36,000 miles/3 year warranty, this will be covered. But if you're past that and don't want to spend a lot of $$, then see if you have any mechanically inclined friends willing to spare a weekend for you.