Has anyone had a warranty claim denied? Seized engine! Pics of teardown added 6/5

[Stevo22]

Originally Posted by Sithspawn

FYI, I just edited my Transient table, flashed the ECU and did a log. Bye bye detonation.

Can you do another log that shows the detonation is gone and post it with a comparison to the first log (with detonation)? It would be nice to see them side by side.

[sierra]

Originally Posted by acro

So question guys, what should i do. i have crappy 90 octane e10 fuel should i be worried .

i have noticed i am not getting close to the fuel mileage u guys are getting i'm wondering if its because of the fuel?

I would keep the car stock so that the warranty will cover any problems.
It does make sense about the fuel economy. Ethanol has a 30%? lower energy content and the engine is losing power as it reduces it's level of tune to accomodate the lower octane.
Also ethanol sucks in moisture that further reduces its octane rating.

[ft_sjo]

Originally Posted by Rampage

Why would the detonation occur when you lift off the throttle to shift? Normally detonation occurs at WOT when the mixture leans out due to more air flow than fuel. I would think at lift you would get a surge of residual fuel as the air flow is being shut off.

Yes, I am aware that other factors such as heat can also cause detonation. I am just looking for a confirmation as to why it is happening like you say it is.

I covered it here:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...&postcount=121

[orthojoe]

What is it with Subaru and not recognizing detonation issues with their ECU programming? Did anyone here buy an 2004 STI when they were first released? Detonation on stock tune. Really bad too, because the bb's rattling were really loud. I will give them credit for recognizing it, fixing it with a reflash, and giving me a free 100k mile extended warranty upgrade after I expressed concerns about potential damaged already caused.

[Rayme]

So, is detonation destroying the DI injector's seals? Is it what's happening?

[wootwoot]

Sent an email to the NHTSA. PLEASE guys. Send an email or call your OEM to say you are concerned about this issue.

[Marrk]

Originally Posted by track_warrior

1- The track will speed up the abuse of the road yes. In other words if engines are failing at 4k-20k miles when being tracked imagine whats in store for your DD at 50-100k miles, specially when having manufacturers denying there is a problem when there clearly is one. MX-5 is a road car and they hold up good at the track, a good friend of mine owns a race school and so far only one car has had an engine failure and it was covered since the car was stock.

2-He is entitled if there is a problem and the manufacturer is not willing to address it. So by not making a recall on shitty injector seals his engine failed, i dont care if it was at the track or in the street a bad call by the manufacturer caused this failure period. If toyota did not recall the unintended acceleration on some of their vehicles would you say its ok for a guy that died or got hurt at the track because his car did not stop when he needed it to not get any sort of compensation. Because even though the manufacturer denied a failure that they knew was going on he was tracking the car so it does not count.

3-There are problems on every car but at least they are solved. E46 m3's had a recall for earlier model rod bearing failures. I have a couple of buddies with E46 track cars that got it recalled and covered under BMW.

1. You are arguing about real world practice. I agree with you. However, my point was a categorical distinction. A "road car"s intended use is that you drive it on the road, not the track. How you drive it is another matter.

2. Since my earlier post, I am learning more about the injector problem. It appears to be combustion related. Even so, there is still wiggle room for the OEM since combustion may be affected by (mis)use.

3. Regrading a second free engine: I would not want to be either party in this argument. In other words, I would not want to be either the OEM or the OP.


:happy0180:

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Marrk

3. Regrading a second free engine: I would not want to be either party in this argument. In other words, I would not want to be either the OEM or the OP.

I seem to continuously need to point out that the first engine did not completely fail. It *only* had the misfiring symptom.

Subaru voluntarily elected to take the engine for analysis. We only needed the DI seals/collars replaced to "make it normal" again. The engine was otherwise perfectly fine.

[xjohnx]

@CSG Mike - not sure if you saw this article from March 9th about the Toyota celebrity race, but they interview Chuck Wade, Director of Toyota Motorsports and this part stands out to me as being particularly relavent.

The cars are also tuned to run on 100-octane racing fuel, but Wade says there’s not much horsepower to be gained there either. The main purpose of the higher-octane fuel in this application is to even out the burn and decrease the risk of detonation. Redline synthetic fluids are used throughout the car to handle the higher temperatures inherent in racing.

Read more: http://wot.motortrend.com/lights-cam...#ixzz2VARtllbd

Seems (to me) like they were aware of the issue then and didn't want any embarrassing failures at one of their higher profile events.

[GTM_Challenge]

^^^^interesting. Thanks!

[wootwoot]

Nice catch!

Our case is building

[markitect]

Originally Posted by Sithspawn

A quick heads up for everybody. This car has issues with detonation with the factory tune. I'm not talking about crappy Cali gas, but the ECU calibration guys at Subaru screwed up here.

Can we monitor the Knock Correction with Torque? This would be nice assurance for people without fancy software.

[Dezoris]

If your seals are starting to go would this even show up on the data log by with more knock detection?

[DarkSunrise]

Just posting the Toyota South Africa TSB for those who haven't seen it:



My personal take -- if this is the only reason the DI seals/collars were failing, and it can be fixed through a simple reflash, that's good news for those who like to push their cars (HPDE/track/autocross or otherwise).