Two owners lost their cars to fire and both received unusual letters denying warranty coverage
On June 8, Bryan Banks’ 2023 Toyota GR Corolla Circuit Edition burst into flames due to an apparent engine failure. By the time the fire department arrived, the car was a total loss. While insurance covered most of the payout, Banks turned to Toyota for the remaining amount through a warranty claim.
Toyota’s response from the Brand Engagement Center was unusual. Banks received a letter from a “Legal Claims Analyst” that, while friendly, clearly refused to offer any assistance. The letter mentioned CarFax reports and lectured him on the dangers of exceeding 85 mph, suggesting that Toyota might deny warranty coverage if the car was driven at high speeds—a strange stance for a 300-hp hot hatch that includes a complimentary day at a race track.
“The speed was the part that really got me,” Banks told a well-known automotive media outlet. “When I spoke to them on the phone, they clarified this further. The entire owner’s manual only mentions not speeding once, and it’s related to tires, which makes sense. Toyota doesn’t want to get in trouble if someone is speeding and a tire pops. But the engine breaking couldn’t possibly be related to the tires.”
For a clearer perspective on the situation, here’s an in-car video of the June 8 fire that destroyed his GR Corolla.
Here’s what the Toyota Brand Engagement Center told Banks regarding his warranty claim.
Banks explained that the accident damage was superficial paintwork caused by debris falling from a dump truck, and he provided Toyota with documents to support this. However, when he called the company to inquire about the specific reason for the claim denial, Toyota allegedly dismissed the accident and claimed the car had been abused.
“They said that at some point in the car’s life, it sent out a data packet indicating the car’s speed. They wouldn’t tell me when or where, so I don’t know how relevant it is, but they said the car had gone 114 mph, and that constitutes vehicle abuse. They don’t care that the car comes with a track day; apparently, it’s considered abused as soon as it exceeds a certain speed.”
Two weeks before the fire, Banks noticed that his car was running poorly, as if it was down a cylinder, but it ran fine after being turned off for a few minutes. He sent his GR Corolla to the dealer for an oil change and to inspect what he suspected was a fuel problem. The dealership found nothing wrong and suggested the issue might have been caused by an octane booster or too much octane in the fuel. Banks stated he uses premium pump gas, as recommended by Toyota.
Then there’s Sebastian R., the owner of a 2024 GR Corolla that burned even more severely than Banks’s car. On May 3, during a trip from California to Arizona, Sebastian’s car, with only 9,210 miles on the odometer, caught fire in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, this occurred during a gap in his insurance coverage. Ouch.
“Initially, I received a notification on my phone through Toyota Connect saying to check the engine due to a malfunction in the electronic control, which I thought was odd,” he said. “Then the dashboard electronics started going haywire. I didn’t notice any loss of power, but then I saw smoke coming from the front, so I pulled over. The next thing I knew, the engine bay was on fire.”
While Banks’s fire was mostly confined to the front, Sebastian’s GR Corolla was completely engulfed in flames. Like Banks, his warranty claim was denied, with Toyota providing no specific reason other than stating the cause was inconclusive. However, both claims mentioned holes in the engine block, as indicated in the letter he received from the Brand Engagement Center.
Sebastian reported that reaching Toyota about the issue was a major hassle. His dealership lacked experience with fire-related problems and directed him to contact Toyota’s Brand Engagement Center. Two records were created for his fire, both with incorrect contact information.
“It was a month of back-and-forth just trying to get it inspected,” he said. “I would call, but nobody could update the information because they could only do that on outbound calls, and they couldn’t call me because the contact details were wrong.”
Banks also faced confusion due to duplicate records in the system. The mix-ups didn’t end there. After the two owners connected on Reddit, they discovered that the same Legal Claims Analyst handled both their cases and that each letter referenced the same incident date of May 3. This date matches Sebastian’s fire, but Banks’s fire occurred on June 8. Could this be a simple clerical mistake or a cut-and-paste error on a form letter? Or are there deeper issues in Toyota’s claims process that led to the denials in both cases?
We reached out to Toyota with several questions, including: Does Toyota void warranties if data indicates its cars exceed 85 mph? Is simply speeding considered vehicle abuse? If so, GR Corolla owners might want to reconsider participating in the complimentary Toyota track day, as the GR Corolla is easily capable of exceeding 85 mph, and even reaching 114 mph.
Is Toyota investigating potential issues with the GR Corolla engine? How does Toyota address warranty claims involving fires? At this time, Toyota provided only this statement to a known media outlet regarding warranty claims:
It’s also important to consider Toyota’s statement about warranty coverage for track events, as outlined on the official website for the complimentary GR track experience:
