GR86 The GR86 : Time for a reality check

9. Not sure I agree. Most people know little about cars and those people that don't know it's a 30k 4pot car might actually be impressed as in "wow nice sportscar what is it?"-sense. In my GT86 days I've had non-car people guess it always higher and up to 4x what I payed for it, got compliments and the GR86 looks even better from the get go. IMHO.

No 9 does apply to the GRY, it's a sporty/muscular Yaris which is, well, not impressive really, only the one that know, know...

A loud exhaust makes people turn heads but that can be in disapproval also...
 
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The people in my office that knew what the GRY was also knew what the GR86 was, but outside of that no one has said anything.

1 person didn't even realise I was driving 2 different cars to work as they were both just "white Toyotas" :ROFLMAO: 🤦‍♂️

Another almost felt sorry for me as I'd obviously had to downgrade from my Porsche... a £20k 2009 Cayman, but that didn't matter. It was a Porsche, and now I drove a Toyota Yaris. People really have no idea in my experience (and that is absolutely fine by me 😊)
 
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Wake said:
The only concern I have now after reading this thread is point number 3. I’m intending on taking the car on a road trip to Italy (if the car comes in time, fingers crossed). Has anyone done a decibel check on how loud it actually is at motorway speeds?
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I have driven from Southampton to Scotland and it very comfy cruiser covers 2k miles that week and do a couple of 150-200 mile journey a week. It is noisy especially on concrete motorways. But it not really bad mate double drove on the Scotland trip usually drives a 5 series was shocked how easy it was to spend 6 hours a day in. We were far from frazzled. You have to be realistic I drove a 440d for 150 miles on Monday and it’s was a lot quieter and quicker but felt like a tank by comparison. Got out thinking nice but no way I would change to one and it was a demo sticker price 67k. I would not hesitate to drive mine to Italy. They are great cars you will love it
 
doogle83 said:
Another almost felt sorry for me as I'd obviously had to downgrade from my Porsche... a £20k 2009 Cayman, but that didn't matter. It was a Porsche, and now I drove a Toyota Yaris. People really have no idea in my experience (and that is absolutely fine by me 😊)
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I'd also prefer people not to think it's expensive. If I'm able to get one, the main downside will be worrying that people think I've splashed out a lot of money on a car (given the income of the people I work with).
 
Onehp said:
A loud exhaust makes people turn heads but that can be in disapproval also...
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Hence me suggesting tuneful rather than just louder. A well tuned exhaust with a little more presence and volume than the stock set up would be a change for the better. A raspy/boomy fart box of an exhaust would not. In the same way stupid pop and bang remap on corsa VXR’s or similar are the preserve of tasteless dickheads.
 
Hachi-roku said:
Hence me suggesting tuneful rather than just louder. A well tuned exhaust with a little more presence and volume than the stock set up would be a change for the better. A raspy/boomy fart box of an exhaust would not. In the same way stupid pop and bang remap on corsa VXR’s or similar are the preserve of tasteless dickheads.
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Yes and no. No, I also think quite a lot of car people confuse turned heads for approval. I know plenty of non-car people that find anything remotely louder than average, even if stock, disturbing no matter how tuneful I think it is. Turned head and a low key muttering.

Yes. Then this gray area of tuneful/disturbing that fades away to the extremes with straight piped whatever that think it's a good idea to give it some beans at 4:30 in the morning in a city centre and, unseen to them, manage to disturb litrerally thousands of people and giving all car enthusiasts a bad rep...
 
I normally get more attention from car people with a knowing nod and kids thinking it's something special. Normal people don't notice or try their best not to notice. The only non car person to talk to me about it was asking about it's reliability and how his Mazda estate was a better bargain then the equivalent Toyota or Honda and that "it flies" with 180 bhp. When I told him it was a 2.4 with over 230bhp he couldn't believe it when we know that's not a massive amount either. But to put it into perspective, that's more than an EP3 Civic Type-R which was raved about when it came out and only slightly less than an S2000 which has VTEC. The Mk5 GTi was 200bhp with a turbo so does have more torque and is more tuneable so anyone used to easy access performance won't like it. Plus people do "outgrow" cars or sometimes think some are beneath them because of the power level.
 
Irrespective of pinpointing the sweet spot on the db front (which will doubtless vary from person to person). From factory it’s fair to say both the note and volume are a disappointing aspect of the 86.

When you have to run a speaker inside a cabin, one in which other noises such as the shifting of gears, tyre roar, wind noise and debris flung from tyres into the arches are most definitely audible then that’s clearly the case. If a favourite band remastered an old album and you discovered the studio engineer had wound the vocal or lead guitar tracks down too far in the mix I’d be similarly frustrated.
 
Wake said:
The only concern I have now after reading this thread is point number 3. I’m intending on taking the car on a road trip to Italy (if the car comes in time, fingers crossed). Has anyone done a decibel check on how loud it actually is at motorway speeds?
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Fitting some sound deadening to the interior panels does give a quieter car - not Rolls Royce standard, but takes out some of the boom and resonance.

GR86 - My Red GR86 - East Midlands

Forgot to put this on after Christmas.. The OH got me this awesome custom artwork from PopBangColour for Christmas; And as I spied her chatting to the artist at a car meet before Christmas, I thought I'd surprise her and get one done of her car and the dogs; Then last week we got these 3...
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Hachi-roku said:
Irrespective of pinpointing the sweet spot on the db front (which will doubtless vary from person to person). From factory it’s fair to say both the note and volume are a disappointing aspect of the 86.
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This I agree with, and it was the same with the previous car; it has it's advantages, but it really is not a great sounding engine. A catback exhaust helps a little, a manifold helps even more....but the engine itself still sounds rather rattly and agricultural a lot of the time. I would go as far as to say that the direct injection makes it sound a little diesel-like at times.

I kind of wish that when they'd upped the displacement, they'd also moved to an unequal length manifold like other Subarus; it would at least add a little character to the car's engine note to distinguish it from other 4-cylinder engines. I know there's plenty of aftermarket options if you really want it, but I prefer to keep the car as stock as possible if I can.
 
Conscript said:
This I agree with, and it was the same with the previous car; it has it's advantages, but it really is not a great sounding engine. A catback exhaust helps a little, a manifold helps even more....but the engine itself still sounds rather rattly and agricultural a lot of the time. I would go as far as to say that the direct injection makes it sound a little diesel-like at times.

I kind of wish that when they'd upped the displacement, they'd also moved to an unequal length manifold like other Subarus; it would at least add a little character to the car's engine note to distinguish it from other 4-cylinder engines. I know there's plenty of aftermarket options if you really want it, but I prefer to keep the car as stock as possible if I can.
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The direct injection tick/clatter is definitely a negative. To be fair to Toyota/Subaru it’s present in later model Porsches with a much higher cost too. A flat four doesn’t by nature seem to generate the most inspiring or musical of noises on a good day. If I’m honest between the noise it makes and concerns about reliability the motor is the aspect of the car that I see as it’s biggest failing.

All that said the car is still a huge amount of fun to drive and Toyota got the recipe right on the whole. This evidenced by the feedback from both motoring jurnos and owners about how bloody good it is!
 
Hachi-roku said:
The direct injection tick/clatter is definitely a negative. To be fair to Toyota/Subaru it’s present in later model Porsches with a much higher cost too. A flat four doesn’t by nature seem to generate the most inspiring or musical of noises on a good day. If I’m honest between the noise it makes and concerns about reliability the motor is the aspect of the car that I see as it’s biggest failing.

All that said the car is still a huge amount of fun to drive and Toyota got the recipe right on the whole. This evidenced by the feedback from both motoring jurnos and owners about how bloody good it is!
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With you on the clatter. When I take it in and out of the garage, you really hear it bouncing off the house walls. Thought something was wrong at first. But then you hear the diff, gearbox, etc too which you don't with a lot of cars.
 
KobayashiMaru86 said:
With you on the clatter. When I take it in and out of the garage, you really hear it bouncing off the house walls. Thought something was wrong at first. But then you hear the diff, gearbox, etc too which you don't with a lot of cars.
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Yeah, it's still a very mechanically-noisy car. You can see why so many people post videos on the Facebook group saying "is this rod knock?", no, it just sounds like a clattering mess, so it's perfectly fine :D
 
Conscript said:
This I agree with, and it was the same with the previous car; it has it's advantages, but it really is not a great sounding engine. A catback exhaust helps a little, a manifold helps even more....but the engine itself still sounds rather rattly and agricultural a lot of the time. I would go as far as to say that the direct injection makes it sound a little diesel-like at times.
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After disconnecting the god awful ASC I like the engine note, its quite unique, I was surprised how it is different to the FA20 despite being so closely related, its much less agricultural and sounds like 'strained.'

When you hit 6k rpm it changes tone and has a slight Porschesque note, I might get a few frowns but hear me out, that's what it sounds like to me, this video captures its quite well, funnily enough chasing a Porsche




Wake said:
The only concern I have now after reading this thread is point number 3. I’m intending on taking the car on a road trip to Italy (if the car comes in time, fingers crossed). Has anyone done a decibel check on how loud it actually is at motorway speeds?
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Probably no worse off from cars of the 90s, it isn't particularly quiet your ears aren't going to bleed.
 
ZN8 said:
After disconnecting the god awful ASC I like the engine note, its quite unique, I was surprised how it is different to the FA20 despite being so closely related, its much less agricultural and sounds like 'strained.'

When you hit 6k rpm it changes tone and has a slight Porschesque note, I might get a few frowns but hear me out, that's what it sounds like to me, this video captures its quite well, funnily enough chasing a Porsche





Probably no worse off from cars of the 90s, it isn't particularly quiet your ears aren't going to bleed.
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Perhaps I need to spend more time revving it out; to be fair, I only drive on the road, and so even when driving for fun I spend most of time in the midrange of about 4-6k. So far, I think it sounds very similar to the FA20 (ASC is off of course). It sounds less strained, I'll grant you, but it still has that DI clatteriness and it makes that awful chuntering sound when accelerating from low revs sometimes (kind of hard to explain, but you might know what I mean - had it with the FA20 even after changing the manifold so might be something related to the injection system again).

Don't get me wrong, still love the car and recognise that the layout is a big part of what gives the car such a low CoG. And the engine is a huge improvement over the last gen. I just kind of hoped that being a less common engine layout, it might sound a little more characterful than most 4-pots.
 
Conscript said:
awful chuntering sound when accelerating from low revs sometimes
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Yup, I get that. Had me worried for a while, but nothing went bang, engine revved and pulled without issue, so I carried on. It seems to be less intrusive with the sound generator unplugged. Maybe just my wishful thinking though.

These posts have made me feel better about the noise, so thank you!
 
So what's the price difference on average between for example insuring the GT86 and GR86. I know it's in group 40e compared to 34e for the Gt86 but whats that in money for a 50yr old.
 
I'm still not convinced the stereo is that bad, granted I'm not an audiophile, but I do like my music. Maybe if compared to a Bose or B&W or equivalent system from a Merc or Audi, etc then I guess it may not sound great.

It does depend on what one hooks up to the head unit too, whether it be via Bluetooth or a wired connection.

In the morning on the way to the gym I just listen to mixcloud via Android auto on OnePlus 11, then on the commute to work I plug in a Sony hi-res digital Walkman, the cable used does make a huge difference too. The sound output from both of these sources doesn't sound bad (to my ears) at all.
 
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