Potential Cause of rumored GR86’s blown engine? Seal packing(RTV) was peeled off

[22 BRZ]

Is there no way to run a scope down from the top of the oil system to look at that filter from the top side? Meaning not having to drop the pan?

[Petah78]

Originally Posted by Aon

Another guy just dropped his pan... 01/22 Build Date. 6,XXX miles.

Maybe we need a "Show us your oil pickup!" thread.

So this guy dropped his pan to check or his engine took a poop already? If you drop your pan without observing problems:

1. If there is no blockage at that time, doesn't mean it can't develop later.
2. If you dropped the pan without observing problems and you do find some blockage, now what? Bearings could have been starved for a while but not enough yet to spin. Suby/Toyota is not going to replace your engine just because you "found" it. In this scenario, I rather let it blow and get a new engine. And no.1 still applies if you clean it up.
3. Any "unauthorized" work can lead to denial of claim later on.

While I also thought about dropping the pan myself initially learning about this, after some thought, I would highly recommend against it. Just send it hard and hope it blows (or not).

[DylanJZA]

Originally Posted by Aon

Another guy just dropped his pan... 01/22 Build Date. 6,XXX miles.

Maybe we need a "Show us your oil pickup!" thread.

Another guy in the comments has shown his as well, build date 12/2021. He simply pulled his pan to check and clean all of it out :/

His motor is fine for now however.


One of the mods has put forth the theory that the QA hold earlier this year was to address this issue before cars made it to customers. I think someone had already mentioned that in this thread, but IMO it definitely could be the case.

[mycrors7]

Originally Posted by Aon

Another guy just dropped his pan... 01/22 Build Date. 6,XXX miles.

Maybe we need a "Show us your oil pickup!" thread.

Confirmed brz #2 with this issue

[Ryan GT86]

Originally Posted by Aon

Providing a summary of my situation via a copy-paste of my Facebook post.

If this asshole is a well known drifter then you should try to warn people in the community about him that he's essentially a narc. That should get him stigmatized.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by S_Yogurt

They already do this by the very nature of their shoddy manufacturing, apparently.

I'm sure Toyota is THRILLED they are having to shell out thousands of dollars per car again for a mistake they didn't make.

Ahhh but see that is the trick and where the conspiracy theories fall apart.
Toyota buys the cars from Subaru. That means costs due to factory defects will go right back to Subaru. Toyota wont be out a penny.

[22 BRZ]

Welp, you sure can't see much from underneath with the pan flange being so wide, but the one area I could feel seemed to have more squeeze out than I'm used to seeing in my line of work (which is quite different to automotive, so my opinion probably doesn't mean much on that). I do think that this is one of those times Id rather the sealant was weighted towards the outside than the inside. At least then the worst thing would be an oil leak, which I could catch...

I thought about bringing this up with my dealer to see if they want to take a preventative look at it. However, since my car is exclusively road driven (and not very aggressively), I think I'd be at a very low risk of failure, and I'm not sure what I'd hope to accomplish...

I think @Petah78 makes a very good point. There isn't really a way to head this off. Just have to drive it, and let the chips fall where they may. And if my car is fairly gently driven, and I get a failure outside of warranty, and iot isn't covered by a TSB, that just means an excuse for the wife and I to EJ or LS swap it (not serious, but also very serious!)

[MyHybridBurnsGasAndTires]

Originally Posted by mycrors7

Subaru started delivering first. America saw BRZ's as early as July/August of 2021. GR86's didnt start to touch America until January/February of 2022.

Subarus have been on the road longer and likely have more miles than gr86's do.

If it has to do with early production models, id expect early model BRZ's to have already had issues, which i havent heard of any

UNLESS subaru is sabotaging gr86's

22 brzs started showing up in november in the US. ordering opened up at the end of july.

[timurrrr]

Originally Posted by Petah78

My car with a build date of 04/22 still have the hyperflash problem so that is not resolved yet. As such, I doubt the QC hold in Jan/Feb was related. I have been reading more about this Jan/FEb QC hold, do you have more info about this?

Originally Posted by Tcoat

The QC hold could have been just about anything. The most probable was that it was not to "repair" an issue but because they did not have all the parts to finish the vehicles at that time. There were thousands of vehicles waiting on QC hold and many more right this moment because they were waiting for needed parts.

Purely speculating: it's possible that the QC hold was in fact related and it was a stop production / stop sale order due to this discovered.
But after doing their bean counting they've decided the cost/risk is such that it's better for them to just sell the cars with the known manufacturing problem that might affect only a small % of a small total volume of cars produced, than to issue a recall and get bad PR.

Maybe they miscalculated ("My risk was calculated, but boy am I bad at math").

Or maybe they correctly guestimated that many of the early cars went to "enthusiasts" who are going to drive just hard enough to be able to deny warranty if needed; and the oil blockage/starvation is so much more likely to affect people who stay at the rev limiter for extended periods of time.

Also, a lot of early GR86s were automatics, and the AT doesn't like to go all the way to the rev limiter unless you're flooring it.

Originally Posted by mycrors7

GR86's didnt start to touch America until January/February of 2022.

I know people who got their GR86's in December.

Originally Posted by mycrors7

If it has to do with early production models, id expect early model BRZ's to have already had issues, which i havent heard of any

UNLESS subaru is sabotaging gr86's

You're assuming that all early cars had the same problem. It's possible that the earliest BRZs didn't have the problem, and then some robot got its calibration messed up, or they've "optimized" something incorrectly.

[22 BRZ]

Originally Posted by timurrrr

You're assuming that all early cars had the same problem. It's possible that the earliest BRZs didn't have the problem, and then some robot got its calibration messed up, or they've "optimized" something incorrectly.

That's what I'm thinking (or hoping for, given my car was in the first batch that came over here). The initial run is always going to have more scrutiny/qualifications going on it, but once that goes away, and all the parts go on to their sampling plans, the chances of a calibration issue going unnoticed go up. Again, I don't work in the automotive industry, but the general rules of production system design are pretty similar across industries.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by 22 BRZ

Welp, you sure can't see much from underneath with the pan flange being so wide, but the one area I could feel seemed to have more squeeze out than I'm used to seeing in my line of work (which is quite different to automotive, so my opinion probably doesn't mean much on that). I do think that this is one of those times Id rather the sealant was weighted towards the outside than the inside. At least then the worst thing would be an oil leak, which I could catch...

I thought about bringing this up with my dealer to see if they want to take a preventative look at it. However, since my car is exclusively road driven (and not very aggressively), I think I'd be at a very low risk of failure, and I'm not sure what I'd hope to accomplish...

I think @Petah78 makes a very good point. There isn't really a way to head this off. Just have to drive it, and let the chips fall where they may. And if my car is fairly gently driven, and I get a failure outside of warranty, and iot isn't covered by a TSB, that just means an excuse for the wife and I to EJ or LS swap it (not serious, but also very serious!)

Originally Posted by timurrrr

Purely speculating: it's possible that the QC hold was in fact related and it was a stop production / stop sale order due to this discovered.
But after doing their bean counting they've decided the cost/risk is such that it's better for them to just sell the cars with the known manufacturing problem that might affect only a small % of a small total volume of cars produced, than to issue a recall and get bad PR.

Maybe they miscalculated ("My risk was calculated, but boy am I bad at math").

Or maybe they correctly guestimated that many of the early cars went to "enthusiasts" who are going to drive just hard enough to be able to deny warranty if needed; and the oil blockage/starvation is so much more likely to affect people who stay at the rev limiter for extended periods of time.

Also, a lot of early GR86s were automatics, and the AT doesn't like to go all the way to the rev limiter unless you're flooring it.



I know people who got their GR86's in December.



You're assuming that all early cars had the same problem. It's possible that the earliest BRZs didn't have the problem, and then some robot got its calibration messed up, or they've "optimized" something incorrectly.

The assumption that it’s will only be an issue with hard use and tracked cars is a bit of a trap.
Oil starvation due to blocked passages is every bit as possible sitting at an idle or just driving casually.
It isn’t as if the track driving is the cause.

[22 BRZ]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

The assumption that it’s will only be an issue with hard use and tracked cars is a bit of a trap.
Oil starvation due to blocked passages is every bit as possible sitting at an idle or just driving casually.
It isn’t as if the track driving is the cause.

Yeah if enough of the inlet gets covered, won't matter how the car is driven, it's going bang.

I guess I was thinking if I only had a small blockage, and don't push it too hard (I'm never WOT for more than 7 or 8 seconds at a time), I would still get away with the amount of oil flow left. Or is that a fallacy as well?

I'm extremely frustrated by this. I know the old adage about not buying a first MY car, but I thought this one was safe given how much of a carry over it was. Although this issue does seem like more of a manufacturing issue than a design issue, but still...

[mycrors7]

Originally Posted by MyHybridBurnsGasAndTires

22 brzs started showing up in november in the US. ordering opened up at the end of july.

I know BRZ owners who got their cars in August and September

[OkieSnuffBox]

Originally Posted by mycrors7

I know BRZ owners who got their cars in August and September

You know people who got their cars the month ordering opened?