Oil Starvation a Known Design Flaw?

[nikitopo]

Originally Posted by poisonsnak

I just signed up to post in this thread, because I have to agree with the title. I'm pretty sure I spun a rod bearing with 56,000 km (about 35k mi) on the engine. I have not had the valve spring recall done, and I don't think it applies to my car.

I did this to my Supra by running it low on oil, so on my BRZ I have changed the oil every 6 months (about 6000km or 3500mi), used Mobil 1 0W20 and the black Tokyo Roki oil filter. I checked the oil every Saturday morning and it has never been below the 3/4 mark on the dipstick.

It's a 2014 so I don't think it would have the bearing packing issue. The car has never been tracked or autocrossed, it's my DD, I admit that I sometimes drive like a maniac, but as a DD it does spend probably 95% of its life around 2000 rpm.

I've owned it since new and the car was 2 days older than 5 years when it happened, it was on a Saturday night so by the time I could contact Subaru it was 4 days past. Subaru Canada and my dealer both pretty much told me to f--- off. They also (both!) basically told me that unless you have your car in at the dealership for service at least once a year, even if it's within the 5 year warranty they are going to find a way to void it anyway. I did all my own scheduled maintenance and oil changes, kept all my receipts.

Took it to a shop I trust (the guys who replaced the engine in my Supra...) and they sourced a used engine from a wrecker to get me up and running, total cost was about $5500 CAD installed. So for those of you in my situation, looking at these short block costs scared, find a good independent mechanic. As a side note, my mechanic had a heck of a time finding that engine. He made that comment to the wrecker. The wrecker said "I know. I guess they didn't make many of these cars, so I don't get many in, and as soon as I do, I have someone calling me wanting the engine out of it"

They let me keep the old engine so I will be taking it apart in my spare time to confirm the issue. If anyone has any requests I'd be happy to comply, but it will take me a fair while to do I think. I also know this is my first post and the story is a bit unbelievable, if you guys really want I can post my receipt from the mechanic or a pic of my old engine in the back of my pickup right now or something

I don't want to say definitely that your engine oil selection caused the issue, but for spiritual driving and driving sometimes like maniac the 0w20 oil was not the best choice. This was suggested by factory just to keep fuel consumption and emissions low. You should have used instead a 0w30 or a 5w30 oil. STI suggests even a 5w40 oil for mixed applications of street driving and circuit driving.

[Yoshoobaroo]

Originally Posted by nikitopo

I don't want to say definitely that your engine oil selection caused the issue, but for spiritual driving and driving sometimes like maniac the 0w20 oil was not the best choice. This was suggested by factory just to keep fuel consumption and emissions low. You should have used instead a 0w30 or a 5w30 oil. STI suggests even a 5w40 oil for mixed applications of street driving and circuit driving.

Can confirm. My UOA shows twice as many dissolved solids on the Toyota 0W-20 than the Castrol 0W-30 Euro Formula I'm running now.

[7 skulls]

[QUOTE=poisonsnak;3209848]I just signed up to post in this thread, because I have to agree with the title. I'm pretty sure I spun a rod bearing with 56,000 km (about 35k mi) on the engine. I have not had the valve spring recall done, and I don't think it applies to my car.

Just curious, did you have an oil cooler installed?

[JIM THEO]

Originally Posted by nikitopo

I don't want to say definitely that your engine oil selection caused the issue, but for spiritual driving and driving sometimes like maniac the 0w20 oil was not the best choice. This was suggested by factory just to keep fuel consumption and emissions low. You should have used instead a 0w30 or a 5w30 oil. STI suggests even a 5w40 oil for mixed applications of street driving and circuit driving.

I totally agree, Subaru suggests 0W20 for various reasons but sells 5W40 oil for hard use!
If you read the following thread you'll clearly see that after some spirited driving the car at idle has not acceptable oil pressure so a thicker oil is absolutely necessary, bear in mind in this test the 0W20 is V300 one of the best oils in it's class!
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91820

[TommyW]

This all seems like the IMS issue with the NA 996 and earlier 997's. Very small percentage of cases.