The Toyota GR86 could have a skeleton in the closet.
The Toyota GR86 could be hiding a skeleton in the closet based on a new video showing the sports coupe suffering an engine failure while doing laps around a racetrack. To add insult to injury, the GR86 owner said that Toyota denied his warranty claim.
Luke Liu, the video owner who goes by the alias Lunk on YouTube, took his Toyota GR86 for a track day. He was seen driving the vehicle casually around the track and arguably not pushing it to the limit. He even had the time to acknowledge what appears to be a track marshall, seen at the 2:28 mark of the clip.
All is well until the 6:11 mark when you can hear a weird sound, presumably coming from the engine bay. Everything went south from that point as the sound started to escalate. Then, at 7:14, smoke entered the cabin, prompting a warning light and notification on the gauge cluster. The Toyota GR86 broke down soon after, leaving the driver stuck on the race track.
Liu told CarBuzz via email that his car was towed to a Toyota dealership which was inspected and deemed to have a hole on top of the engine block. He was quoted $13,000 for the replacement.
But the owner doubts whether Toyota checked his GR86's oil pan to see if there's a hint of room temperature vulcanizing (RTV) silicone. RTV is said to have the tendency to clog the oil pickup tube, which could result in engine failure due to lack of oil.
The owner claims that his tail-happy Toyota GR86 only has 19,000 miles on the clock and has no engine modifications, and recently had an oil change. It also appears that the track session was a High Performance Driver Education (HPDE) event, which Toyota acknowledged before as not grounds enough to void the warranty.
Despite this, the owner said that Toyota denied his warranty claim “due to the nature in which the vehicle was used.” According to Liu, the issue was escalated to Toyota's corporate office wherein he offered to send the video to prove that he did nothing wrong while driving his GR86 on the track. However, Toyota brushed it off and sided with the dealer.
If Luke's story sounds familiar to you, it's because a similar scenario happened to a guy named Blake Alvarado back in August 2022. Alvarado's GR86 also suffered engine failure. Toyota initially denying the warranty claim due to the use of the car on track but later reverted that decision (after public pressure) and eventually ended up agreeing to pay for the failed engine.
Toyota did release a statement after honoring Alvarado's warranty claim. The statement read: “The GR brand is driven by enthusiasts and focused on delivering incredible experiences wherever the driver may take their vehicles, including the closed-course settings for which their vehicles are designed, so long as they are driven in a manner that falls within the terms of the warranty.”
We reached out to Toyota, who told us they are aware of the incident and are looking into it. We'll update this story once we get more information from the carmaker.
Keyword: Another Toyota GR86 Suffers Engine Failure At The Track