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GT86Reece

Blown Engine?

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Hi all,

Sorry I'm not very mechanically minded at all so I'm going to try and explain what's happened as much as I can and answer any questions you guys may have to try and help me.

As you may have already seen in the GT86 & BRZ Drivers Club Facebook group, my mate Jordan Cave has posted about what happened to my car:

Basically my car has been absolutely fine up until last Saturday when I went out for a drive with Jordan, and I was picking up some speed and then my car wouldn't rev past 5000 like a limp mode was switched on, so I guess that was the first point something seemed wrong, we shortly pulled off onto a smaller side road and there was a knocking noise from the engine which you could only hear when accelerating, even very gently. Then when I was going to turn into another little side road, the engine cut out and it didn't want to start again, it would try and turn over but not enough to start the engine. I didn't want to try too many times because I didn't want to make things worse or drain the battery before anyone could look at it.

I called the AA out and the guy basically didn't have a clue as everything looked normal, the oil levels were fine, the battery was fine, the fuses were fine, the exhaust wasn't blocked and nothing was unplugged, there was nothing obvious so it seemed it would be something internal. The AA guy tried to crank the engine manually and it wouldn't move at all. He plugged in a code reader which only said 'Engine Fault' so got nothing from that.

2 days later on the Monday, I plugged in a code reader at home and got the code U0073 which says 'Control Module Communication Bus Off'. That was a moment of hope as I thought it would be something electrical had gone wrong instead. Got the car started at home, although it didn't want to initially start, and when it did it seemed a bit rough for a few seconds. Then it seemed fine, until I increased the revs gently and could hear a nasty knocking noise again.

So the decision was made to tow it to Toyota in Rayleigh for them to look at. The car is 4.5 years old and still has 6 months warranty, and I was already trying to fight them for sorting out an oil leak which was coming from the timing chain cover. They still haven't got back to me on that and I've chased for 3 weeks. Anyway I explained what had happened and said about the code etc and left the car there, they phoned me the next day and said as the car is remapped it won't be covered under warranty as that would increase power which could have caused a rod to go. I tried to explain that the map wasn't really for increased power, and the fact that there are Supercharged and Turbocharged 86s and BRZs out there with stock internals running 290-340 bhp, some even more than that which have also been mapped of course, and their engines are completely fine. I've only done 37k miles and was shocked that I may have blown the engine with pretty much stock power.

I asked Toyota to raise this further and they came back the following day and said their warranty team won't cover it because it's been mapped etc, and if I want them to take the engine out to have a look, it will cost £2000, before they even find out what's wrong. I'm not going to go down that route because they could take it apart and then say oh it's another £6000 to repair etc, bit of a bottomless pit if I take that route. They said the alternative would be a new engine for £17000, not sure if the guy was trolling me or not but I think it's pretty obvious I'm not going to do that.

The car is currently still with Toyota and I'm just trying to see if anyone else has had issues engine wise with warranty if the car has been mapped, and how they got on with taking it to Toyota? I assume I have no leg to stand on to be honest. Currently thinking of looking for a 2nd hand engine, possibly a 1JZ or something but unsure on where to find a good engine and a garage that is willing to do all of the work involved, and also have no idea on how much that is likely to cost. Just trying to think of my options...

Sorry for the long post, but thanks for reading.

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@GT86Reece I'd suggest having a chat with @Mark Gillam at Abbey Motorsport if Toyota won't play on the warranty front about engine rebuilds / swaps. The prices the dealer have quoted you are just a joke imho. 

Other options would be @Adrian - tss at Fensport, Rogue Motorsport or @Mike@TD.co.uk at Tuning Developments but I would think Abbey are your closest. 

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Nothing to do with the engine, it's injector or injector control. The noise you here will be one cylinder dieseling if the injector isn't firing, or not being told to fire, or the injector itself is making the noise, if it's not happy. The reason it's only at higher revs is you have 2 sets on injectors, high and low pressure, it's probably the high pressure one that's giving an issue.

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Quite common for manufacturers to not warranty remaps. One of the few is Ford and Mountune but they are manufacturer approved ( only on performance remaps or kot not racing remaps or packages)

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

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Get it away from there source a 2nd hand engine and get someone who has a clue to fit it Reece I would have told you not to take it there in the first place but with a bit of warranty left I suppose it was worth a try 

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This is one of the problems of the re-map culture we have nowadays, manufacturers won't cover the warranty, and to be honest I don't blame them. 

When you had the re-map done you must have known this would void your warranty? 

If it were me, I would use it as an excuse to get more power, if you have the cash. Engine transplant? Rebuild with a supercharger or turbo? You won't get anything out of Toyota, no amount of complaining will work as it is clearly stated that any modifications will void the warranty. 

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1 hour ago, Graham86 said:

Nothing to do with the engine, it's injector or injector control. The noise you here will be one cylinder dieseling if the injector isn't firing, or not being told to fire, or the injector itself is making the noise, if it's not happy. The reason it's only at higher revs is you have 2 sets on injectors, high and low pressure, it's probably the high pressure one that's giving an issue.

I won't claim to be an expert on mechanical, but I think this guy might be correct. Generally a rattling noise is terminal, because it's something like a big end bearing failure, but surely this would manifest itself at all times when the engine is on - not just when the car is under acceleration. 

I would echo some of the suggestions above. Forget Toyota - they aren't going to honour the warranty for an engine failure as you've had it remapped, and to be honest, that's fair enough, so anything they do they will make you pay through the nose. Get in touch with someone reputable (as above Abbey Motorpsort or Fensport are probably your closest) and see what they say. Hopefully Gaham86 is right and it will be something like injector failure - it might still not be cheap, but hopefully it wont be terminal.

Best of luck mate.

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It needs properly diagnosing before taking the engine out. I agree that I wouldn't rule out direct injector seals as one possible example that can cause a knocking sound. Its not always a big end failure. 

£17k for a engine has got to be trolling. Bet they had a great laugh about that in the office. 

 

 

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54 minutes ago, Ade said:

It needs properly diagnosing before taking the engine out. I agree that I wouldn't rule out direct injector seals as one possible example that can cause a knocking sound. Its not always a big end failure. 

£17k for a engine has got to be trolling. Bet they had a great laugh about that in the office. 

 

 

This,

 

Get it somewhere for diagnosis first before jumping to the worst conclusions.

 

Mike

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It doesn't sound terminal, just needs true diagnosis which Toyota won't be able to do without huge bills. Get a boxer specialist on it, certainly sounds like an injector fault to me. Going off topic but how can Toyota tell its been remapped? 

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6 hours ago, Luke said:

It doesn't sound terminal, just needs true diagnosis which Toyota won't be able to do without huge bills. Get a boxer specialist on it, certainly sounds like an injector fault to me. Going off topic but how can Toyota tell its been remapped? 

Probably easily by comparing the code to factory code

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Hi all, thanks for all of your replies and also sorry for the slow message in return, I'm not usually too active on the forums but had lots of things going on in my personal life that has taken over a bit recently...!

As for an update, I have collected my car from Toyota Rayleigh and it is now back home on the drive feeling all sorry for itself, although it still looks amazing - I miss it so much, I sat in it the other day and I just wanted to take it out for a spin! Sorry, getting a bit carried away from the purpose of the reply.

I didn't actually have the remap done myself, but I did think it would void my warranty - just thought it would be worth a try with Toyota anyway, perhaps should have got the remap removed before taking it straight there...

As Nails suggested, I think I'm going to take the route of an engine swap all together and hope to turn this into a positive and be running some nice power. Staying away from the FA20 engine for now, then when the install is all sorted I can have a piss about with the FA20 in my own time and once it's rebuilt I can either keep it as a backup or sell it on. I run the engine on idol the other day and it sounds like a bag of nails, it's pretty nasty, and touching the throttle just makes the worst rattle / banging noise at the moment... I've no idea what I'm talking about in terms of engine noises, but I'm thinking it's more serious than injector or injector control as it's not just at higher revs, it's at all revs. If someone fancies having a little listen to it who understands engines more than me so you could perhaps share some light on what you think it may be, you'd be more than welcome to! I will obviously get around to finding out what the issue is at some point and then put another post up to let you all know.

Meanwhile, the hunt for a nice engine setup begins... R.I.P to my bank!

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Utterly gutting. Just seen the before fun 

You should make a video of the engine sound as it runs so perhaps we could shed some more light on where to problem lies.

Gutted for you. 

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You'll be lucky to do an engine swap for under £20k - there is a huge amount of work involved in even vaguely similar engines going in. It's also important to find good people to do the work. A bodger will give you never-ending troubles.

I believe getting someone like Fensport to do a teardown and repair would be massively cheaper, unless you start asking for a turbo.

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2 hours ago, nerdstrike said:

You'll be lucky to do an engine swap for under £20k - there is a huge amount of work involved in even vaguely similar engines going in. It's also important to find good people to do the work. A bodger will give you never-ending troubles.

How much did your engine swap cost?

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5 hours ago, nerdstrike said:

You'll be lucky to do an engine swap for under £20k - there is a huge amount of work involved in even vaguely similar engines going in. It's also important to find good people to do the work. A bodger will give you never-ending troubles.

I believe getting someone like Fensport to do a teardown and repair would be massively cheaper, unless you start asking for a turbo.

anyone that's somewhat handy with a set of spanners could swap a replacement FA20 in without any issues as long as they did their homework beforehand. Considering a used FA20 costs in the region of 2-2.5k it really wouldn't cost much at all.

This is all assuming it is as dire as the engine going pop.

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