Check engine light just came on after 2k miles.

[tintumz22]

Originally Posted by DaJoian

Glad to hear everything went smoothly for you! What is your mileage? (If you don't mind me asking)

I got about 350+miles now.. It went in to the dealer 300 something miles when the issue came.. So, it came as early as when I'm about to take it out of the lot and came back for the second time about 300 miles..

[QFry]

For those interested dyno runs before/after the CEL/SL are scheduled for next week. Hopefully something useful will come to light. (as long as my engine doesnt die before then...)

[amox]

AT FR-S, traction/CEL lights came on at 230-250 miles. Dropped it off at the shop Aug 7 and the ETA on parts arriving is Aug 21.

[Vonsamhain]

Originally Posted by amox

AT FR-S, traction/CEL lights came on at 230-250 miles. Dropped it off at the shop Aug 7 and the ETA on parts arriving is Aug 21.

At least they ordered your parts. I dropped it off this morning and they havnt even talked to corprate yet to get the answer that is already known. They said they called corporate tech office and no one has called back. they won't do anything until toyota gets around to calling them back.

i dont even want to leave the car there for 2 weeks while parts are on order. id rather leave it in hte driveway and be able to work on it while parts are on order.

actually if the dont have parts on order by tomorrow morning im taking back, its only a mile.

oh and anyone who didnt get a free loaner or rental car... that's complete bs, in california they dont have a choice. it's on toyotas bill to at least give you a Ford POS (Focus). Im just going to leave that car at toyota instead. Pisses me off, I had a lot of plans to work on some customized mods on the car while the fiance' is studying fo board exams. they want it to sit in the parking lot and gather dust as an advertisement. screw that. end of rant.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by QFry

***This is just speculation***... The same thing happened to me at 230 miles. I hard reset the ECU, clearing the CEL. Just went to get gas and do a few test runs to see if it came back on...it did after 5 miles, but i noticed that the "lower" power band before the noticeable dip seems to disappear when the CEL comes on. makes since. Now being the genius i am (sarcasm), i decide to ignore the light and floor it just to see what was what and viola...the "upper" power band seemed to still be there (so much for limp mode...and i may have made a vtec joke)...

Is it possible that whatever Nissan/Subaru did to create that initial hump (i like to think of it as MAGIC) is causing the problems? Would this be able to show up on a dyno if one was done while the CEL was/is on? (this is still assuming that my cars condition is the same as this...)

The cam timing in the high rpm range is similar to the idle/low load timing. The intake cam is on full retard. Makes sense that when CEL comes on it will keep the cams there, to intentionally reduce available torque.

If the cams were indeed stuck in a slightly "wrong" position causing overlap and hence bad idle, that would be less of a problem at higher engine speed.

[Vonsamhain]

My dealer didn't even order parts in the first 24 hours. They also said they needed to "test the car" and drive it 15 miles away. I was very distracted at the time of the phone call, and said "sure", and a few minutes later I realized earlier I got the impression not only have that not received any FR-S's to that dealership but the want to use my car to play with. I think the service tech drove it home last night.

Bottom line, I'm not paying toyota $500 a month to let their mechincs use my car to beta test and train their techs. They can pay me for that, or I'll just let it sit in my driveway and continue my own cosmetic mods while they wait two weeks for parts.

I'm picking up the car today and bringing it back when the parts are in their hands and they are ready to install. I'm NOT paying for them to take the car out for an evening on fun.

[soconfoozed]

Originally Posted by brufleth

You don’t sound like you’re a software engineering or at least not an integrated systems software engineer. We don’t patent software because it means giving our competitors details on what and how we are doing stuff. We patent novel hardware designs. Software is protected by avoiding stuff like overly detailed descriptions of faults and an over abundance of obvious outputs. Hell, we had a scare earlier this year because the config files for our data readers use plain text parameter names which legal was flipping out about.


As far as collecting long term data, we actually do this. The engines I work with have a customer that collects data on every mission from every vehicle in their fleet. It isn’t that many vehicles and the quantity of data is enormous. We did some nuisance fault reduction work and it took ages to trim it all down. It is valuable though and definitely helpful when diagnosing problems and suggesting corrective action. Cars aren’t usually hooked up to a central network though. Even if people did let them connect to their wifi and car companies did swallow the added cost of a wireless data dump system (not cheap because it ends up being another computer [probably wouldn’t do this in the ECU]) I don’t think drivers would be thrilled with details of every drive being recorded. It shows when the drivers do something dumb/dangerous just as much as it shows when something is wrong with the mechanical system. The use of the data isn’t trivial either. It can take several experts looking at some data to figure out what’s really going on and if there’s a problem or not. That’s expensive and car companies are very cost conscious. And finally, since there’s no law making them do it, they don’t want to bother.


I think for cost and cert reasons the alternative to the CEL right now is to simply disable the car whenever a CEL worthy fault is detected. Maybe give drivers a few minutes to get off to the side of the road they’re on. Cars are already on the ground and just shutting them down after a given amount of time (or maybe just preventing you from restarting them) would probably be safe enough. I’m pretty sure the only reason car companies don’t do that is because customers would be so pissed.

Indeed, I'm mechanical. However, what's more likely is that what you're doing in software just isn't patentable subject matter. Which does happen, it's true, and then you're forced to resort to obfuscation and trade secret law as you describe. I still think an improved user interface is possible without outputting engineering-level data. As you noted previously, this isn't helpful to the user.

I similarly think the data can be made useful without quite so many of the issues you identify. For instance, the data could -- and should -- be anonymize to prevent punitive behavior by dealerships and warranty departments. It could be aggregated during service visits, and needn't be collected live. Dumpster diving for interesting correlations indeed takes specialized skills, but I think the upside is very strong for something like this. Cars probably do tons of things and get used in tons of ways that we just don't even know.

Interesting discussion, thanks for sharing!

[soconfoozed]

Also, count me in the P0019 club. I should get my car sometime next week, so they say. I'm not really expecting them to come through, so hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Scooby South]

Well...I am getting mine back... it threw 3 codes total... p0019 Cam/crank sensor Sensor 2 bank 2... My dealer was great.. however they didn't replace anything.. Techline told them to swith out the sensors from right to left and see which side the code comes back on ...either to the sensor side...or the camgear side... well after they put 350 miles on my car..the codes have not come back......yet..so they want me to pick up my car so..and depending on which side the code come back on is the part they replace...either the sensor...or the camgear... so now I play the waiting game..... I am pretty sure its going to come back...but don't know when... it could be 3500 'more' miles before I see it.. this is from Subaru Corp ...telling the tech to switch it out....hopefully its later rather than sooner as I have the Subaru Challenge in Indiana next weekend......hope its ok ...

Bill

[tintumz22]

Update!

August 17,2012

So, I managed to reach 500+ miles on the car. No light so far so that's a good sign. It's running more stable as I said. No RPM drop coming to stop or light and no RPM dip during idle. Idling smoother and stable. I'll be around for more updates and news. 500 miles more for break in!

[Lonewolf]

This is getting f'n ridiculous...geez, I'm waiting for the 2014's after this explosion of owners with serious problems

[Mr.Roboto]

at 537 miles CEL is back on!!!!!

[QFry]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf

This is getting f'n ridiculous...geez, I'm waiting for the 2014's after this explosion of owners with serious problems

Hasnt really been a serious problem for me yet IMO its understandable the small things that have happened so far.

[Lonewolf]

Originally Posted by QFry

Hasnt really been a serious problem for me yet IMO its understandable the small things that have happened so far.

It's not serious in the sense that thousands of engines aren't grenading, but being without your brand new car for a week while the dealer techs tear apart your engine bay isn't a small deal to me either. That, coupled with the fact that multiple members have come forward in the last couple of weeks with this problem is very disconcerting to me.

This problem, coupled with all the other nagging little issues will make me stick to my never-buy-a-first-year-car rule (which I was seriously considering breaking for the FRS).