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Link to the r/cars post: https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/wcbt67
This doesn't look good for those of us looking to track/autocross the GRC. Pretty disappointing that Toyota is marketing GR as a motorsport brand but won't accept responsibility for an engine failure from light track usage. Thoughts?
Nothing new. We've had manufacturers take pictures of license plates to "void" warranties.
 

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Dang... I want to autocross mine when I get it and maybe do some SCCA rallycross, but this scares me. I understand if I did rallycross and broke a knuckle or something from hitting a rut that that wouldn't be warranty, but oil starvation causing engine failure in autocross is ridiculous!
 

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2017 Lexus IS350, 2007 Toyota Camry, 1995 Toyota MR2, 1996 Honda Acty
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Subaru engines seem to continue doing Subaru things. That being said, any car that is subject to sustained lateral G forces have the potential to oil starve.

It doesn't surprise me that a manufacturer wouldn't want to warranty anything that has been tracked at all. Sometimes damage isn't immediate or catastrophic and instead deteriorates over time. At the end of the day these are still street cars and not race cars.

Most cars will need some kind of modification to overcome the stresses of track use, such as heat, oil starvation, or simply making sure things are tight.

That being said, I can understand the frustration. I think it's important to note that there is a lot of marketing behind the motorsport aspect of these cars. It's important to remember this is just that, marketing.

I think any owner of an enthusiast car should understand the potential risks of bringing their car to driving events, including having your warranty voided even if the event was not directly related to failure.
 

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Damn it, Subaru. I was really starting to enjoy my GR86... Okay, ergonomics be damned, I'll switch to the GRC as soon as possible (hopefully before 2024). Build quality out of Motomachi would make for nice peace of mind.
 

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If your car is under warranty, what they won't know won't hurt them. You should be honest, but IMO if you tell the dealership techs that you broke your car doing motorsports, that's on you.🤷
As long as you don't make any modifications to your vehicle to greatly increase cornering limits, then it's bullsh*t for a manufacturer to void warranty claims for track usage. As to AutoX'ing - yes that is a motorsports competition, but to say that those involve extended periods of high cornering loads leading to oil starvation is complete fantasy. The courses aren't large enough or fast enough to allow for that.
 

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As long as you don't make any modifications to your vehicle to greatly increase cornering limits, then it's bullsh*t for a manufacturer to void warranty claims for track usage. As to AutoX'ing - yes that is a motorsports competition, but to say that those involve extended periods of high cornering loads leading to oil starvation is complete fantasy. The courses aren't large enough or fast enough to allow for that.
The oil starvation is from a manufacturing issue, that’s ultimately what makes this situation interesting.
 

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It's mentioned in the thread, but it's Gulf States Toyota that denied the claim. They are a private distributor for Toyota in multiple states and different from Toyota Motor North America. It's likely the same warranty denial would have occurred in a non-private Toyota distributor state, but something to consider. The warranty bill ends up at TMNA regardless, but GST has to be able to justify the warranty bill to TMNA which is why they likely denied the claim. For as much attention as this claim has received, it wouldn't surprise me to hear TMNA reaches out to him and goodwills the repair.
 

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The entire reason I want one of these is so I have a car I can both daily and take to autocross. This is causing me to seriously reconsider whether I even want to buy one of these. Maybe I'll just keep my Accord and stick with something reliable and safe and give up on this idea of doing motorsports. Such a shame that Toyota seems to not support even the lowest form of sports car driving for their sports cars.
 

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The entire reason I want one of these is so I have a car I can both daily and take to autocross. This is causing me to seriously reconsider whether I even want to buy one of these. Maybe I'll just keep my Accord and stick with something reliable and safe and give up on this idea of doing motorsports. Such a shame that Toyota seems to not support even the lowest form of sports car driving for their sports cars.
Lowest form?? 🤣 apparently you've never done a proper autocross. In an average autocross run you have 40 or more braking and turning events in a run of 60-90 seconds. On a track you have 10-20 in 2-3 minutes per lap. Just because the average speed is lower, doesn't make it less. Autocross will teach you car control far better than anything else.

*I do both Autocross and Track driving.
 
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