Unofficial - CEL/SL/Idle Issue List for FR-S/BRZ Owners

[DaJo]

Originally Posted by EJ33177

@DaJoian

I originally had 810, was replaced with an 811. Which is probably the issue. I've inquired about having an 812 but the dealer said they have to go by what Toyota Service says to do.

Good news is the dealership told me they will be backing me in my request for a new car if that's the route I decide to take.

Service manager told me that Scion of America told her approximately 8% of our cars are affected by this issue and about 95% are fixed by the ECU reflash.

It seems every avenue for the fix has been attempted with my car with negative results. Really hoping that I can get an engine replacement or new car. I'm so tired of dealing with this and getting pretty frustrated with Scion. Scion really needs to get their act together with finding a fix and educating the service departments.

Glad to hear you're being taken care of by the dealer.

Regarding the 8% affected... Wasn't it just a few weeks ago we heard only 5% were affected? Now 8%??...

[Lonewolf]

Originally Posted by Tricky1980

update:
first cell at 76 miles... got car back at 110 - replaced vvti gears and ecu replacement.

about 60 days later im at 995 miles and it came back on today. dealership closed. have to wait til monday to notify them.

however, i spent 21 days in the shop the first time i have ALREADY went through arbitration with toyota, i was told to suck it up and stop whining and my car was fine... i told her i would see her soon.. imagine that i was right when i told her it wasnt really fixed... so im not sure what is going to happen at this point... i was offered and received ZERO compensation the first time around other then a snicker when i was asked to be treated like everyone else.

more to come after monday.

Document everything, file a complaint with the NHTSA, send a letter to Scion/Toyota of America formally requesting compensation once you have determined how many days your car has been out of service...9For example, 32 days equals a months car payment compensation)...also peek at the lemon law in your state

[Sean K.]

Originally Posted by DaJoian

Glad to hear you're being taken care of by the dealer.

Regarding the 8% affected... Wasn't it just a few weeks ago we heard only 5% were affected? Now 8%??...

Ya, that's not a good sign....

Could just be a random misquote of the figure, but if it has gone up to 8%, that does not bode well for the mfr's complete understanding of the problem.

Sean

[jduffy]

Those percentages are probably wrong. Let's do the math.

So there are 170 instances of failure, multiply by 100 and that's 17,000.

The total units sold 8572 plus 3120 and that's 11692.

So divide 17,000 by 11692 and you get 1.45%.

2 funny.

[Sean K.]

Originally Posted by jduffy

Those percentages are probably wrong. Let's do the math.

So there are 170 instances of failure, multiply by 100 and that's 17,000.

The total units sold 8572 plus 3120 and that's 11692.

So divide 17,000 by 11692 and you get 1.45%.

2 funny.

Not sure I'm following your math.

Toyota/Subaru reps were saying 5% of roughly 11K cars (BRZ/FR-S) sold in America at last count.....or ~550 total. At 8% it's obviously ~880 cars.

You cannot go off of how many cars have posted to this thread b/c there is zero guarantee that everyone or even 1/2 of the people who've had this issue have found this forum, registered or posted to this thread.

I'm in total agreement that techs and spokespeople for the mfrs are NOT to be trusted in terms of the actual percentage of affected cars......what I'm saying is we simply don't know the real numbers unless an "official" statement from Toybaru comes out.

I just wonder where these factory reps are getting their numbers.....and if the mfrs know that they are spouting off numbers and now raising the percentages. That is a major screw up in public relations.....assuming it's not factually based.

Sean

[Alienate]

Originally Posted by EJ33177

@DaJoian

Service manager told me that Scion of America told her approximately 8% of our cars are affected by this issue and about 95% are fixed by the ECU reflash.

I think 8% is a very realistic number. They started by denying any pattern of problem/failures.
Then, as case after case piled up they said 5%. (a small number to them )
Now, they know it's wide spread and have focused some direct attention on the problem and they see it's more like 8%. Good for them to "fess-up"

[JohnS_Rosamond]

Sean K. You're being too serious, Jduffy was having a laugh (if I understand correctly). He's saying that if we take our number of faults here and multiply it times 100 (there are 100 more groups of 170 individuals each who also have CEL trouble) then this number would be far greater than the total number of cars produced.

I believe that between 5 and 8 percent of all produced FR-S/BRZ vehicles having trouble is probably correct (and probably a lot higher than it should be even with a first year car).

[EJ33177]

I'm in total agreement that the percentages being tossed around could be complete BS.

I'm just passing along what was told to me. For clarification Darren at Scion of America told me 5%, yesterday the service manage at my dealership told me Scion of America told her 8%.

The fact that Scion/Toyota/Subaru are admitting a substantial number of vehicles are affected is a good thing. I'd rather them own up to it and attempt to make it right, than have them "ignore" the issue.

What I find disappointing is despite this a known MAJOR issue they seem to not be making any headway in producing a fix, at least in my case anyways.

[diirk]

Popped the CEL/Traction Light today at 3437 miles. I disconnected the battery cable to reset. I'll see what happens over the next day or two.

User: diirk
Model: BRZ Premium MT
Miles: 3437
Vin: 603233
Status: Disconnected battery. Awaiting reoccurance.
Location: SoCal
Description: CEL/SL. Hunting idle with almost stall. Shut down and restarted. Idle smoothed out but retained lights. Drove home and disconnected battery. Reconnected. No CEL. Idle is OK. Mileage is down a little. Will drive and see if it happens again.

[Eurasianman]

Originally Posted by diirk

Popped the CEL/Traction Light today at 3437 miles. I disconnected the battery cable to reset. I'll see what happens over the next day or two.

VIN?

[KrzysFR]

Update: As of now, my GT86 has been in the shop for 3 full working days. They have changed the VVTi cam gears, reflashed the ECU, and the car is still throwing CELs after CELs.

Just called them, they don't have the slightest idea why, or even if/when they'll be able to fix it....



Oh and a Toyota hotliner just called me yesterday for a customer satisfaction survey. Oooooh what a perfect timing.

[diirk]

Originally Posted by Eurasianman

VIN?

done. Added to previous post

[jesperswe]

Originally Posted by KrzysFR

Update: As of now, my GT86 has been in the shop for 3 full working days. They have changed the VVTi cam gears, reflashed the ECU, and the car is still throwing CELs after CELs.

Just called them, they don't have the slightest idea why, or even if/when they'll be able to fix it....



Oh and a Toyota hotliner just called me yesterday for a customer satisfaction survey. Oooooh what a perfect timing.

Damn that doesn't sound very comforting

[Eurasianman]

Originally Posted by diirk

done. Added to previous post

Thank you sir Hope your car gets fixed soon.