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

[orthojoe]

Originally Posted by Rampage

That even goes for companies like Porsche, Ferrari or BMW. Why would any company spend the money to over engineer their cars just in case they were tracked?

Porsche actually does a really good job of over engineering their cars. People really don't have to do anything to their cars to make them track capable. Particularly with the 9A1 engine.

Originally Posted by Rampage

I wonder how Porsche views tracking the base model Boxster?

In general, they are actually pretty good about covering any and all their models. I know plenty of guys who track their boxsters that have had issues covered under warranty.

Sure, there are stories where coverage has been denied, but mostly they have been covered. I think it does boil down to the dealer and the relationship you have with a dealer... and sometimes pure luck.... regardless of the manufacturer

[Razz]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

This is Subaru's official stance.

Sorry to hear this.

[clayrush]

Originally Posted by DylanFRS

Right and legal are of course two totally different things. Legal is whatever their lawyers write in the contract.

Just because it is in a "contract" does not always make it legal.

Not saying it is or is not, because I don't really know. But I know some "contracts" like a prenuptial agreement does not hold up to well in California.
Or a job's policy and procedure handbook can say the will fire you because of whatever, does not always make it legal.

It's just to bad that you got to pay out of pocket a shit ton of lawyer's fees to fight it.

[suaveflooder]

Originally Posted by thill

I will say it again. If you plan on tracking the car, just don't advertise it all over the Internet (forums, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc).

All this talk of DI failures and people getting denied for tracking the car really put a damper on my tracking my car at all. For now, I will stay away. Not worth losing the warranty.

Originally Posted by Rampage

They may have a lot of people that track their cars but I am betting they have a lot more than do not. Also a lot of Porsche and Ferrari cars that are tracked are older models that have been out of warranty. And as I stated above the cars do not sell for less than $50K. They sell for a premium price and therefore can be over engineered to some extent. They could also afford to offer a better warranty on those premium priced cars. I wonder how Porsche views tracking the base model Boxster? Probably about the same way Subaru views tracking the BRZ.

@thill, this is basically what I'm planning on doing. I'm dying to track the car no matter how slow it is. I figure I will wait until 60k, keeping up on maintenance and HOPE Toyota will come up with a reflash (the drivetrain will remain 100% stock). If they don't, the car will be long paid off, I no longer have to worry about Toyota telling me "no, because the car has been tuned" and I will just tune the engine then for the "fix" and turn her into a track whore.

As for right now, it's a DD. I NEVER really get it much above 4k rpm, so my engine should be okay (crossing my fingers)

[ZDan]

Class.action suit. Porsche owners affected by IMS failures recently won, Porsche has to pay for engine replacements retroactively (prorated up to ~125/140k miles).

[regal]

Originally Posted by ZDan

Class.action suit. Porsche owners affected by IMS failures recently won, Porsche has to pay for engine replacements retroactively (prorated up to ~125/140k miles).

But we're not a bunch of rich Porsche owners with lawyers. We bought a Toyota/Scion so we didn't have to worry about a warranty.

The best way for this to be handled is a collective effort to really fix the factory tune, don't think the TIR Table is the only issue with the factory calibration. What we don't need is another commercial tune offering +5 hp. This engine is already tuned to the edge from the factory, stays in closed loop to long, relies too much on knock feedback, etc.

We need a smart grassroots track tune, I'll take 195hp and 300k miles over 200 hp and 60k miles. How about a 195HP tune that doesn't heat the oil to 290F? How about a 195hp tune without 10 possible knock events out of 60 ?

Hate to say this but Mustang guys would have put this to bed by now. Problem is most of the top USA Subaru tuners who understand the stupid factory Subaru logic and have 1000's of hours with Subarus on dynos are busy with Cobb equipment tuning STI's, they don't really need our business. Most of them don't even have EcuTek and they are strikingly absent from this forum..

[Hanakuso]

So basically if we shift slow regardless of the rpm, we should be fine right?

[ft_sjo]

Originally Posted by Hanakuso

So basically if we shift slow regardless of the rpm, we should be fine right?

Kind of. It's not about how fast you shift, it's about how quickly you bring the clutch back up and stamp on the throttle. If you don't hit the gas until your foot is off the clutch then that'd be a fairly safe bet. That's how you should be driving anyway!

[s2d4]

Originally Posted by ft_sjo

Kind of. It's not about how fast you shift, it's about how quickly you bring the clutch back up and stamp on the throttle. If you don't hit the gas until your foot is off the clutch then that'd be a fairly safe bet. That's how you should be driving anyway!

You don't even need to shift for it to happen.

[ft_sjo]

Originally Posted by s2d4

You don't even need to shift for it to happen.

Actually you do, there are different transient tables just for shifting than normal on/off/on type transients.

[DylanFRS]

Originally Posted by ft_sjo

Kind of. It's not about how fast you shift, it's about how quickly you bring the clutch back up and stamp on the throttle. If you don't hit the gas until your foot is off the clutch then that'd be a fairly safe bet. That's how you should be driving anyway!

What do you mean? You are saying that in most cars it is not okay to roll on the throttle before the clutch is fully engaged? I have driven manual cars my entire life and you are telling me I am doing it wrong?

I bought my FR-S to drive like it like a sports car, not like an '85 Buick. That includes shifting.

[Sellout]

Originally Posted by DylanFRS

What do you mean? You are saying that in most cars it is not okay to roll on the throttle before the clutch is fully engaged? I have driven manual cars my entire life and you are telling me I am doing it wrong?

I bought my FR-S to drive like it like a sports car, not like an '85 Buick. That includes shifting.

I can induce knock on a shift even at low rpm by quickly getting back on the throttle...

[dsgerbc]

Originally Posted by regal

Problem is most of the top USA Subaru tuners who understand the stupid factory Subaru logic and have 1000's of hours with Subarus on dynos are busy with Cobb equipment tuning STI's, they don't really need our business. Most of them don't even have EcuTek and they are strikingly absent from this forum..

Those 'top USA tuners' killed more tracked STIs than a stupid factory logic ever could, especially early in the development. There's very little that the tuners know about the new engines, sure, some of them can crack and dis-assemble the ECU code. But they know next to nothing about the actual combustion, it's sensitivity to temps/pressures/etc. It takes a lot of computational hours to work-out a good tune for a boosted DI engine.
They can learn that some things are not to be messed with, but they can only do this by watching knock (that is damaging your engines)/blown engines (your engines)/other damage. So, I find laughable the whole idea that some "pro tuner" w/o an advanced engineering degree and an all-round thorough understanding of exactly how modern engines work could magically come and fix the "horrible" factory tune. There are people like that who can properly come up with a tune that alters the tune per specifically requested trade-off on efficiency/emissions/reliability/performance relative to OEM, but they are:
a) employed by OEMs
b) will require long hours of computations on large computers.

I would not even trust aftermarket tuners to 'fix' just this one table. Doing so risks discovering at a later point that at the time the tuners didn't know about some other interlinked tables that got screwed up because of a 'fix'.

[Sportsguy83]

Originally Posted by Sellout

I can induce knock on a shift even at low rpm by quickly getting back on the throttle...

That is not entirely true. You need to shift at high RPM to be above 5200 RPM in the next shift.

That is the "tip in knock issue" and the OEM ECU flash having that table disabled above 5200 RPMs.