Wonder what Toyota will do if you track this car

[ft86Fan]

Toyota keep suggesting that the best use of the rear seat is to fold them and put a set of tires and take it to the track. This is great coming from a manufacture but I wonder whether Toyota will still honor your warranty if you do. Just like Lotus keep suggesting that the Elise/Exige is a track car for the street but when you do take it to the track you can say bye bye to the warranty.

[ryude]

I don't see how tracking a car would void your warranty...

[old greg]

It's considered abuse or some such. It's just like how Nissan wouldn't honor warranties for blown GTR gearboxes.

[ft86Fan]

I guess I should rephrase that. They won't void your warranty but if you bring your car in for any repair under warranty they will try their best to deny it and blame it on track use which is not covered.

[LSxJunkie]

Depends on the warranty issue. Your radio is eating CDs? You're good. Stitching on the seats comes apart? Covered, no problem. Headlights on the fritz? Bring it in. Passenger window will no longer auto-up? Golden.

You oval out a lower control arm joint because you're running R-Comps and the link was never designed for that much lateral stress, that's a different story. That's probably not going to happen until someone builds a 500whp track monster, but it's just an example. Some street stuff is just not designed for racing.

E36 M3s would develop stress cracks in the rear subframes from stiffer suspension because all of that impact was transferred to the metal instead of being soaked up by the shocks and springs.

C6 Z06s suffered from oil starvation (and blew up nice, expensive LS7s) on long sweeping left handers with R-Comps because the car was never tested with sticky tires (even though the goddamned dry sump was specifically designed to avoid this problem).

There are all sorts fun weaknesses that wringing a car out beyond street use will expose. It is honestly unreasonable to ask a manufacturer to warranty all of these issues when the manufacturer is in the business of selling road cars, not race cars. If you have a failure and your car is completely, 100% bone stock, it should be warrantied because this is how they are designed and tested. However, once you start changing things, the argument against coverage becomes more and more compelling. This is why some (very rare) companies will sell you a body in white without a VIN or warranty if you really want to go racing.

[Driver]

that wont void your warranty at all. the only thing you can kiss good bye to when you track your car is your insurance!!!

and how would they know that you took your car to a track one day?

[Driver]

Originally Posted by LSxJunkie

Depends on the warranty issue. Your radio is eating CDs? You're good. Stitching on the seats comes apart? Covered, no problem. Headlights on the fritz? Bring it in. Passenger window will no longer auto-up? Golden.

You oval out a lower control arm joint because you're running R-Comps and the link was never designed for that much lateral stress, that's a different story. That's probably not going to happen until someone builds a 500whp track monster, but it's just an example. Some street stuff is just not designed for racing.

E36 M3s would develop stress cracks in the rear subframes from stiffer suspension because all of that impact was transferred to the metal instead of being soaked up by the shocks and springs.

C6 Z06s suffered from oil starvation (and blew up nice, expensive LS7s) on long sweeping left handers with R-Comps because the car was never tested with sticky tires (even though the goddamned dry sump was specifically designed to avoid this problem).

There are all sorts fun weaknesses that wringing a car out beyond street use will expose. It is honestly unreasonable to ask a manufacturer to warranty all of these issues when the manufacturer is in the business of selling road cars, not race cars. If you have a failure and your car is completely, 100% bone stock, it should be warrantied because this is how they are designed and tested. However, once you start changing things, the argument against coverage becomes more and more compelling. This is why some (very rare) companies will sell you a body in white without a VIN or warranty if you really want to go racing.

best answer yet and probably to come.

[ft86Fan]

Originally Posted by LSxJunkie

It is honestly unreasonable to ask a manufacturer to warranty all of these issues when the manufacturer is in the business of selling road cars, not race cars.

I totally agree but I guess my point is what if they advertise it as a car that should be taken to the track like Lotus did with their advertising and then when your engine melts from running too lean from fuel starvation it is not covered.

I know that most of us that track our cars will make the necessary mods and prep our cars and take full responsibility when we break our cars on track. My point of the post is just that I find it strange that Toyota would actually encourage people to track their FT86 thats all. Not that its a bad thing. I find it very refreshing in this day and age.

[RRnold]

Originally Posted by Driver

and how would they know that you took your car to a track one day?

I'm sure the same principle applies from my motorcycle track days to car track days as well.

I've attended track days before at the following tracks; Willow Springs, Button Willow, California Speedway, Laguna Seca, Miller Motorsports, Pahrump (Spring Mountain).

From what I recall, as long as it's not a "timed event" then you are ok, both warranty and insurance.


Toyota/Scion seems to target that type of marketing. As ironic as it might sound, the Tacoma commerials had a lot of off-roading and jumping indicating it can be used off road. On the Tacoma forums, guys were jumping them and breaking upper control arms, blowing the shocks etc. I haven't seen any of those Tacoma commericals lately...

[ft86Fan]

Originally Posted by RRnold

From what I recall, as long as it's not a "timed event" then you are ok, both warranty and insurance.

Oh, they stopped that a long time ago. Almost all insurance companies now say that as long as your car is on the track, it is not covered. Doesn't matter if its called High Performance Driving Education (HPDE) or that its not timed. If you want insurance for track days you'll have to buy it separately from insurance companies that offers it. Usually by the days.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Driver

best answer yet and probably to come.

Yep.

BTW I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but welcome to the site LSX. You'll be a great resource here I think.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by ft86Fan

Oh, they stopped that a long time ago. Almost all insurance companies now say that as long as your car is on the track, it is not covered. Doesn't matter if its called High Performance Driving Education (HPDE) or that its not timed. If you want insurance for track days you'll have to buy it separately from insurance companies that offers it. Usually by the days.

Correct.. some auto insurance still allows it but it's very limited now.

Also, the HPDE in question needs to go through a process to get approval from those track insurance companies so check with the organization to see who they've signed up with to offer participants insurance.

[yarik83]

As far as I know most aftermarket modifications will void your warranty. Most track cars will have aftermarket modifications. If you race stock vehicle then if you run into parts braking etc they might take your car and run an engine management system scan. They had to reflash my truck's computer after installing airbag sensor that went bad and they had told me that "it looks like you were taking good care of the car, I do not see anything out of the ordinary with your driving history" Now I sincerely hope that guy was just making a compliment and not downloading my driving profile. If he did then I am (not that I have anything to hide) baffled by the fact that your driving history is logged.

Progressive insurance offers a chip that gets connected to your computer socket so I suppose its possible to log your driving history?!

In any case dealers will come up with a million excuses to not service your vehicle.

Insurance companies DEFINITELY do not want you racing on or off the street for obvious reasons.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by yarik83

As far as I know most aftermarket modifications will void your warranty.

The dealer/manufacturer has to PROVE that the aftermarket part caused the damage. You could modify every single part of the car but leave the OEM radio, if the CD transport fails after 35 months, it's still going to covered under warranty.