Potential Cause of rumored GR86’s blown engine? Seal packing(RTV) was peeled off

[bcj]

Tim Bits with Voodoo Donut guts, a pretzel through the heart
and grinding spark ash with Geddy doing that thing.

[mycrors7]

Originally Posted by S_Yogurt

I know someone who boroscoped their BRZ and found extra RTV squishing out, it just hadn't caused a failure yet. It may be simply because of sales volume of Toyota versus Subaru that we're seeing more of one than the other.

Subaru started delivering first. America saw BRZ's as early as July/August of 2021. GR86's didnt start to touch America until January/February of 2022.

Subarus have been on the road longer and likely have more miles than gr86's do.

If it has to do with early production models, id expect early model BRZ's to have already had issues, which i havent heard of any

UNLESS subaru is sabotaging gr86's

[mike2100]

Originally Posted by diga

just to be clear, I'm referencing the issue being discussed in this thread (RTV blockage), I am NOT personally experiencing a blown engine.


The point of my reply is to pose the question of whether or not Toyota/Subaru has access to GPS data which can then be used to deny warranty claims if it's determined the failure happened at a known race track/autox location.

You may want to edit your other post for clarity. Based on the sentence structure I thought the same as Petah. I'm not trying to insult your grammar, just letting you know it's confusing.

This thread's subject line is also confusing. When I saw "seal packing" I did not immediately think "oil pan sealant." I was thinking of an engine seal, like the rear or front main seal.

[chipmunk]

Just an FYI, some (if not all) OEMs test their engines on the dyno with oil pickup tube slightly clogged, just for this kind of scenarios. I don't know if Subaru/Toyota does it, but since I know GM does it, I can confidently assume that Japanese OEMs do it too.
Now the question becomes - what percentage of blockage is off limits.

[Spektyr]

Originally Posted by S_Yogurt

I don't think this is the right decision, no. I also don't think they're evil for making this decision at this stage, my point is that this isn't out of line with what any other manufacturer would decide or do.

They're going to have to fix it either way, whether it's a warranty for broken cars or a recall they will eventually issue, assuming this is widespread enough to require them to do so.

I never said anything about evil. I did use the term ignorance, but if that's what you mean your reply doesn't make sense.

When I said "never underestimate the power of ignorance" what I meant was that due to the gulf between what you understand and what someone else understands, and the limited capacity to accurately bridge that gap, other people's ignorance can exert considerable power. Often in your favor.

Now I'm not a lawyer, but I could imagine a scenario where an attorney could present a case that Toyota cannot reasonably deny a warranty claim for a "lightly tracked" car when they themselves encourage people to track the car.

There may be a significant difference between HPDE and autocross, but the point is whether or not Toyota's lawyers can explain that well enough to a judge for that judge to side with them and - more importantly - whether Toyota is CONFIDENT that their lawyers will succeed and NOT result in a ruling that opens them up to significantly-increased warranty costs.

If that case doesn't go their way, everyone who races their car and then would normally get denied a warranty claim now has a legal basis to demand Toyota fix their cars. It may get worked out in Toyota's favor months or years from now, but in the meantime Toyota is burning money to fight it in court.

It's simpler, easier (and less evil) for Toyota to just fix the car. The owner(s) simply need to push hard enough that Toyota would rather pay a little to make the problem go away.

[Tcoat]

Ok we have been through all this before but I guess it needs to be discussed again.
The car is heavily advertised as track ready, they offered free track days, hell it has a button in it clearly labeled “track”.
The warranty wording is “ Misuse-for example, racing & competitive events, off-roading or overloading”. It may be semantics but driving your car on the track is not racing nor a competitive event. They don’t care if your car was casually tracked and the wording of the warranty gives a clear out for you to do so as long as it wasn’t an organized and recognized race event of course.
What they are using is the “abuse” clause of the warranty. When they pull data and find multiple over revs, high temperatures or excessive Gs they suddenly have something they can play with. Doesn’t matter if those occurred on a track or the street that is what they can use to deny coverage IF it could cause the issue.
I guess the only answer is to go to the track as they actively promote and even encourage and then just drive around like a granny.

[CincyJohn]

Originally Posted by OkieSnuffBox

One of our great devs needs to come up with a way to obfuscate the data outside of the ECM.

Are you seriously advocating warranty fraud? tsk, tsk, tsk...

[Spektyr]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Ok we have been through all this before but I guess it needs to be discussed again.
The car is heavily advertised as track ready, they offered free track days, hell it has a button in it clearly labeled “track”.
The warranty wording is “ Misuse-for example, racing & competitive events, off-roading or overloading”. It may be semantics but driving your car on the track is not racing nor a competitive event. They don’t care if your car was casually tracked and the wording of the warranty gives a clear out for you to do so as long as it wasn’t an organized and recognized race event of course.
What they are using is the “abuse” clause of the warranty. When they pull data and find multiple over revs, high temperatures or excessive Gs they suddenly have something they can play with. Doesn’t matter if those occurred on a track or the street that is what they can use to deny coverage IF it could cause the issue.
I guess the only answer is to go to the track as they actively promote and even encourage and then just drive around like a granny.

I'm definitely not arguing any of those points.

My point is simply that there's a really good chance that, with minimal-to-no personal expense, you can involve a lawyer that may trigger a "just make the problem go away" response from the dealership.

IMHO, it's worth a shot.

It matters less whether you can win in court compared to whether Toyota/dealership believes they can win for less cost than just doing the repair.

Obviously, if someone gets a lawyer that lawyer will be able to offer infinitely more-sound legal advice than I can, and they can help you determine the best course of action. Maybe it's just a bluff, maybe there's a solid reason not to bluff, and maybe the lawyer is confident it's not a bluff at all and you have a solid case. That's for the lawyer to gauge.

I'm just saying that there is definitely a potential where all it takes is the presence of a lawyer to change the minds at the dealership in favor of warranty repair. Maybe not. Maybe there's a middle ground where they counter-offer with a discounted repair.

But the core of the point is that without talking to a lawyer the chances are zero that they'll change their mind.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Spektyr

I'm definitely not arguing any of those points.

My point is simply that there's a really good chance that, with minimal-to-no personal expense, you can involve a lawyer that may trigger a "just make the problem go away" response from the dealership.

IMHO, it's worth a shot.

It matters less whether you can win in court compared to whether Toyota/dealership believes they can win for less cost than just doing the repair.

Obviously, if someone gets a lawyer that lawyer will be able to offer infinitely more-sound legal advice than I can, and they can help you determine the best course of action. Maybe it's just a bluff, maybe there's a solid reason not to bluff, and maybe the lawyer is confident it's not a bluff at all and you have a solid case. That's for the lawyer to gauge.

I'm just saying that there is definitely a potential where all it takes is the presence of a lawyer to change the minds at the dealership in favor of warranty repair. Maybe not. Maybe there's a middle ground where they counter-offer with a discounted repair.

But the core of the point is that without talking to a lawyer the chances are zero that they'll change their mind.

Agreed. I wasn’t addressing your statements just appended to follow you. Presenting the warranty wording to a lawyer would be my first step.

[mycrors7]

I spoke Too soon about brz failures

From japan:

Car delivered September 1, 2021
A little under 11k miles
6 track days (7-8 hours of total run time)
8 oil changes since taking delivery

https://twitter.com/kakuni67174437/s...7LAn2w2Y3nq_zQ

[Aon]

Another guy just dropped his pan... 01/22 Build Date. 6,XXX miles.

Maybe we need a "Show us your oil pickup!" thread.

[S_Yogurt]

Originally Posted by mycrors7

UNLESS subaru is sabotaging gr86's

They already do this by the very nature of their shoddy manufacturing, apparently.

I'm sure Toyota is THRILLED they are having to shell out thousands of dollars per car again for a mistake they didn't make.

[Petah78]

So do we have any indication if the excessive RTV is from the oil pan, timing cover or both?

Clearly this is wide spread problem, just we do not know when/if it was fixed or if applies to all car made up to that point or random samples.

[FrickingReallySlow]

Did he have a problem. Or just precaution. I think an easier way would be to just get a oil pressure gauge put it on the oil dummy sensor location and have everyone mark their oil pressure at 4K RPM/200F

Anything less than 60psi with factory 0-20W fill and you need to “drop your pants”

Originally Posted by Aon

Another guy just dropped his pan... 01/22 Build Date. 6,XXX miles.

Maybe we need a "Show us your oil pickup!" thread.