GT86Jay

Tried calling 3 times, Have to do it via mobile at work. In my lunch hour. Took 14 minutes to speak to a human, which then I could not understand, crackly and was being asked if my car is in a police compound.... Resulted in having to give up for today.

If it gets me cheaper insurance i'll have bionic anything.....

Can you quote 21Y/O with modifications?

'Spooning' in the next hotel for an event then?

Update on this is.... All the stuff has finally arrived through customs. Got done for an extra cost but is all covered now and parts are here. I'm building the kits over the weekend, and the harnesses will all be tested and checked. Then start sending out from Monday onwards. Some unforeseen delays and customs issues caused hold backs but all here now. Anybody that is interested in another group buy but missed the first one and hasn't contacted me already. Let me know. We might be able to do something, but probably not as cheap as the first round. Just PM me if anyone is interested. Jay.

Yeah definitely right! I'm currently nursing a really bad cold, cough and sore throat. (Maybe Ebola) Night and day. Although currently my night and days seem to mixing into 1 based on how much I need to do in the next couple of weeks.

To follow on again, I agree. The difference between the new V2 and V1 is light and day. So much better response, more power, smoother and awesome delivery.

Toyota GT86 to an Alpha

I've just received acknowledgement from my insurance company that they've received my 3 & 1/2 A4 page complaint.. We'll see where this goes.....

So as some of you know, I had a small accident in my GT86 in July. I wanted to write this post for a few reasons… To hopefully share my experience and some lessons learnt! To give some insight to how insurance companies handle claims. Praise the fantastic work that RRG Toyota carried out on my work. So first things first.. The accident... Great Yarmouth, coming out of town with my girlfriend to go get a milkshake. Very familiar with the roads, cruising around 15 - 20 mph past the hollywood cinema. Not paying attention and gave it a little too much throttle before the car was in a straight line. The back snapped out of place as if we we’re on ice. I tried to correct, over corrected as the back of the car just felt insanely light. And unfortunately the front end met with a road sign post. I think it was a mix of greasy roads, not paying attention as chatting about our milkshake and the fact i’d got to complacent with the car and trusted the budget tyres too much! Impact was probably around 25 mph. We were turning a sharp right hand corner, so nothing dramatic and well within the legal limits…. On initial inspection the engine is fine, it drives and rolls, apart from a flat tyre. Everything just looks cosmetic. at this points. Anyway the car is transported off to the insurance to deal with.. Now this is where the lessons start and some pointers. What was different? I’ve done this corner hundreds of times, hundreds of times faster, many times a little sideways, it was one of those ideal corners to just blip the throttle and get the back end out of shape. But enough room to correct. Tyres! About 2 -3 weeks prior to the accident i’d decided to buy some new 18” wheels. They came included with some budget tyres. Excited to get the wheels on, and not really in a position to spend £400 - £500 on new tyres. I lived with them. The tyres seemed great. I’d even taken them on track once or twice. However in conjunction with the very dry weather and then a sudden down pour the Sunday afternoon, this particular corner was like ice to these cheap budget tyres. Progression was zero, control was zero and any chance of correcting was slim. The tyres were doing nothing. So lesson one. Never put budget tyres or trust budget tyres on any car. I will never be tight on tyres again. And this has been an expensive lesson learnt the hard way! The fun begins… The insurance company approved repaired decide to write it off due to being uneconomical to repair. But being persistent and pretty gutted at this outcome I decided to enquire. Turns out they’d quoted £3000 I repeat, £3000 to repair the fog light. Which considered of a broken plug on the end of a harness. They wanted to replace the entire harness, which included all the engine control stuff. For £3000! They also missed most of the chassis damage and misdiagnosed this. They hadn’t quoted the Air Con correctly as the GT86 uses a different gas which is more expensive etc. etc. etc. These things went on and on. Spraying an entire door because of a stone chip etc. And these are the insurance companies “Approved Repaired and professional body shop dedicated to repairing your car”... After telling the insurance company I wanted a second quote I paid and got the Car to Richard (Riceburner) of RRG Macclesfield to quote. RRG were fantastic, and the repair was approved and went ahead. Now as some of you know I have done some modifications to my GT86. Suspension, Exhaust, Wheels, Tyres, Brakes and some stickers. Main components as the suspension and exhaust were declared. But i’d not really ever bothered about stickers or the tyres etc. Not thinking anything of it. The insurance company come down hard! REAL HARD! People. Declared everything! My policy actually became VOID for a short while, and RRG were not given authority to repair the car. Now with me in serious disbelief thinking, how can they void the policy for some stickers and tyres! Which 90% of cars on the road have changes or are not OEM spec! I finally get to speak to the underwriter, I have to explain my reasoning for these modifications and why they are not on the policy. Why have you got ‘blacked out badges’ and Subaru BRZ Side Fenders. Now this wasn’t a problem, and I just paid an extra £12 to add them to my policy and the policy was Legal again and the repair continued. Lesson 2, Declare everything! And I mean Everything. My policy now has, stickers, tyres, brake pads, bug shit and swirl marks listed. I was lucky and got a kind underwriter and managed to convince him it was a genuine mistake and didn’t think they needed declaring. But if you get an un-happy underwriter or can’t justify why you’ve changed parts. Then your policy is void. you get 6 points for illegal insurance and the repair bill to pay! It also delayed the repair by nearly a week! Urggh! Although my insurance modification fiasco didn’t stop there. I then got an email asking me to justify why, I had fitted…….. A Turbo system, Brace bars and cold intake system. My car doesn’t have a turbo. And it is impossible to have a turbo from the photos the insurance company got. … Tell me how there is a turbo fitted in that picture… The brace bars are standard, and the cold intake was the air intake funnel behind the bumper… All stock! Anyway, finally after they’d called Fensport, RRG, and a few other places to confirm my car didn’t have a turbo, the repair continued. From this point it all gets a little more relaxing and things begin to take shape and be repaired. I decided that I would bite the bullet and go TRD Body kit whilst it was in for repair. I was going to get the car back pretty much stock, without my originally body kit fitted as that was damaged and couldn’t be replaced under insurance. So decided to order the TRD Kit. Which Richard agreed to fit and paint for me. (Obviously not being paid for via the insurance) But any additional was from my own cash. Of course the other thing I done straight away was bought a set of very good premium tyres. Eagle F1 XLs. Which I had delivered at RRG and they fitted. Whilst this was all going on I had my birthday which I got a Fensport Voucher. I was determined to spend this on something I wouldn’t usually buy myself and didn’t want to put it towards repairing the car. So decided to go for the Smaller TS Steering wheel which i’d always fancied but couldn’t justify buying myself. On its way to RRG it went. Another thing Richard very very kindly agreed to fit whilst being repaired for me. Also managed to get hold of the full Samco kit. Guess where this ended up going…. (Sorry Richard). More stuff to fit. Next up was JAE, where some how I was convinced to buy a front strut bar…. And who was there. Richard. After this I think he went home before I gave him anything else to fit. Anyway by this point I was now quite excited to be picking up the car again, New TRD, Steering Wheel, Samco, Brace bar and a few other little bits. Richard kept sending me teaser photos, which I wasn’t sure if I liked or not. Especially once I knew it was back together and he was driving it. Anyway, the day came, he gave me the date to pick up! Extremely excited we traveled up to Macclesfield and stayed over the night before. 5 minutes from RRG. We got to RRG about 10pm and actually managed not to go and peek at it, Not wanting to ruin any surprise of seeing it properly in the sunlight. For some reason I woke up at 4am that morning. Due to pick the car up at 10am. Wondering how on earth I was going to wait until 10am to pick up! Whilst sitting in McDonalds I get this photo through and the caption…. "Ready when you are Jay Smith" I’ve never eaten a McDonalds Breakfast Porridge so fast! Turn up at RRG and there it is, under a dark black cover. Looking at me as I park the “Yaris 1.3 Trend+ with Chrome Accents” for the last time! And Richard reveals it! At this point I can honestly say that i’ve never been so impressed and so emotional about seeing a car! But in all honestly it was so so so much better than I could ever imagine. Photos do not do it justice! But the finish, the lines and everything was absolutely perfect! I can not praise Richard and his team at RRG bodyshop enough! So Lesson 3 - If you ever have an accident, cut the crap of the insurance repairers and go to RRG Macclesfield! Since done a couple of little points to finish the car off… Carbon Handles TRD Stickers OEM+ Style SUB TRD Seatbelt Covers So to summarise a couple of points and lessons i’ve learnt the hard way. Never use budget tyres. Declare every modification to the insurance, even stickers. Use RRG for repair work! Don’t get complacent with the car. This is a quick car, you realise that when you spend 3 months in a Yaris! Hope nobody else ever has to learn these lessons the hard way. I have had a string of lucky events which has meant I’ve got my car back. And with the massive help from RRG is better than before! I’m still waiting to hear about how my insurance company are going to compensate me for the massive delays and balls up regarding my car and modifications and mis-quote from the first garage. But I maybe expanding on this post with the full story about my insurance and how they made such a huge mess up of everything! Keep posted!

I'm now trying to figure out how I can travel 5 hours for my next Service. Would you believe, after my car being in at RRG, I got a personal phone call and a letter asking if i'd like to book it in for Service with RRG. My local Toyota dealer, 25 minutes away, haven't even acknowledged my service is due.... Lets see some photos of the changes on your BRZ

So you're telling me, you've never ever been in a car with someone and had a chat? Or just found yourself doing the same journey again and again.... There were many factors in this not just, not paying attention. And yes, my policy has everything declared now, even the TRD side stickers. Not worth the risk.

I plan on keeping it for a very long time, Meaning I will gradually up the power and make it the car I'd want to live with forever. I'd probably get a daily driver soon enough though so the GT86 becomes a weekend toy. The way I look at it is you can get more car for your money. But all these cars seem to be either really expensive to run, maintain and service. (there's a reason why a £70k car is £30k second hand) Or they're just another hot hatch. I looked at a C63 AMG a few months back. £23k 55k miles. It was immaculate. But..... 10k mile service costs around £700. 20mpg is your careful! We saw 8mpg on a hard 25minute drive. GTR R35s are same story, getting down to below £30k. But 6000k mile service interval, £600 per service before breaks and tyres. Tyres are £1200 no choice. As for the new BMWs / Hot hatches, probably better running costs. But still just a hot hatch / car. GT86 has some sort of heritage and driver style to it.

Put Copper Grease on the back of the shims.. I dropped mine off into Kwik Fit to do mine when I first had it, cost £11. Also can be caused if you've not done any heavy breaking for a while. Do some heavy breaking from like 60mph - 10mph...

Yeah, I can confirm... Dipping the clutch is not a good move. Happened for me as natural reaction. But didn't end well as you know..... Although may have saved some damage to the gearbox and clutch, either way. Driver training is the way forward......

Not sure, I paid £100 for this one. But cash next day pick up from their office. I think you'd have to expect to pay more for one from the US after shipping etc. Also depends what Drive Unit you want to put in it. Have no problems with the 10" JL fitted in this one! Key is to wait until they're up second hand I guess.

I actually saw it on ebay before on here, So offered him what the buy it now was to pick up next day as it was only 30 minutes from RRG when I was there. It's brilliant. Better than the system I had built into the base of the boot before hand, Much lighter and can be removed really easily. Makes a fantastic addition to the OEM system, doesn't take much boot space and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking about it.

No the coilovers on mine are below the carpet liner and this sits above. So not a problem. I don't even think it would be a problem with the Tein Motors either. This sits very neatly in the corner and there'd be plenty of room for brace bars / coilover mounts.

This is sold, as I bought it....

I can buy rubber wheels from my local Toymaster for 88p..... Rip off.

Looks like those Dry Carbon Fibre Fenders are just covers to the existing fenders... I made similar mistake. Luckilly the seller refunded.

I looked into stiffening up the diff mounts. What I learnt, (Not through experience but reading) was that you make the ride very harsh, loud with vibrations and can cause damage to other parts that require a little bit of movement in the diff. It also makes getting a good start off the line good. If you up the power and stiffen up to much, you may find the wheels just try to spin. As I say this is with experience but just reading and talking to various people. I choose not to stiffen the mount on mine.

I don't think I'd trust my brake setup from Taiwan. But brace stuff isn't going to kill you if it goes wrong. That why I bought STI second hand kit and had them fully refurbished. At least then you're getting good, quality almost new brake kit from a JDM Impreza. For Budget Taiwan brake money.

Taiwan. K-Sport and D2 Head Quarters are in the same Industrial Building unit..

They're made at the same place... That's close enough right?