I need advice, at this point I really don’t know what to do.
I bought a 2014 Subaru BRZ from a private seller around the middle of August. It drove great, perfect right until the end of September.
After a long drive home one night, I noticed that there was abnormal rumbling from the car, eventually the engine light came on.
I took it to a mechanic shop and they changed out all 4 sparkplugs and an ignition coil after they determined it was a misfiring issue. That didn’t fix it and after another day of diagnosis they said that it might be the fuel injectors but weren’t exactly sure.
At this point I towed the car to the local Subaru dealership. I explained all the previous work and diagnosis to the service manager.
They then took a look at the car and determined it was two fuel injectors, which they then replaced. When that didnt fix the issue they determined the problem was the injector driver unit. They then ordered in a tester unit to test and see if that was the problem.
According to them once they installed that unit and there was a spark in the cylinder, there was some kind of big explosion in the cylinder from excess gas from the previous misfires. Anyways, the engine experienced a catastrophic malfunction.
They took the engine out the car to examine the damage. They found that a valve spring broke from the excess pressure. This caused the valve to drop into the cylinder and hit the piston head. The broken valve spring also caused a rocker arm to become loose and hit a camshaft which knocked a chip into the cylinder head and fly out the rocker cover.
At this point, they’ve had the car for two weeks. Their advice was to rebuild the engine and that I had to cover the costs for this and the rental car.
In my mind they should have covered the cost for this since I brought the engine to them in working condition and the failure happened in their care, but I didn’t argue too much once they said they would give me a reduced labour costs and warehouse pricing for the parts needed for the rebuild. I went along with it because I needed the car back ASAP and figured it would be more expensive to take the car anywhere else at this point. They were also giving me a 1 Yr warranty on the rebuild which eased my mind a bit.
Now is where things start to get ridiculous. They said the rebuild would take no more than a week, but after a week they kept leading me on day by day by complaining about some new thing. Finally they gave me a call to pick up the car at the end of Week 4. I left work early to pick up the car, but once I get there and pay the car won’t start. Turns out there was a fuel leak.
After the weekend, I go back to pick up the car. This time I’m able to drive it off the lot, but the next day on my way to the doctor the car starts making a rattling noise. Its freezing rain outside and I have to pull over only to find out that a pulley is loose and rattling. The dealership tells me not to drive the car and that they’ll tow it in the morning from the grocery store parking lot. At least they paid for my uber home this time.
They towed the car in the morning and dropped it off at my house after tightening up the pulley.
Now, a week later after getting the car back, I was driving to see family and I start hearing chattering from the car. I pull off the highway and the chattering gets worse and eventually proceeds to horrendous squeaking, a metal on metal kind of sound. This was at 11 PM last night. I tow it to the dealership pissed off but thinking at least they’ll cover it under the engine rebuild warranty.
I get a call this morning from the dealership saying that they cant figure out whats wrong with it from the outside. They’ll have to pull it apart again, but that the sound is coming from the side of the engine that they didnt work on, so likely won’t be covered under the warranty and I’ll have to foot the bill again.
Again I think this is complete bs. They took the engine apart, inspected what was wrong with it, replaced what needed to be replaced and put it back together. It doesnt matter if its coming from the bottom end and the other side. It was a rebuild that they did, if there was some other issue that they didnt catch isnt it on them?
Sorry for the long rant and probably shit grammar. I haven’t been able to sleep and am super stressed about this.
I’m a student and only 22. Worked my ass off to buy this car. I’ve spent as much money as I can on the last rebuild, and at this point can’t afford any more repair bills.
I don’t know what to do, any advice would be appreciated.
Consider posting this to r/ft86 as well for BRZ-specific advice.