Tragedy – the Toyota 86 has been damaged, twice. Once my fault, and once my wife’s. Except mine was forgivable, of course…
MY TOYOTA 86 is a 2012 model, and those came with full-sized spare wheels – steel ones, which I’ve since swapped for an alloy, plentiful on the second-hand market. The spare sits in the bootwell, and there’s a rubber bootliner over the top with a polystyrene insert to fill the air gap in the wheel.
I keep taking the insert out as I remove the spare wheel for motorsports events, and it’s not really designed for constant removal, so it broke in half. Then I left it on the ground and reversed over it, finishing the job properly.
The solution was simple. I just cut out a couple of plywood discs and now I have a decent spare insert – one that won’t blow away, takes up less room, and there’s now even a little storage area betwixt the top and bottom discs which if your touring with your 86 would be handy extra room.
That’s my damage. Forgiveable, like I said. Unlike someone else who backed the poor car into a tree, resulting in the damage you can see. I decided to fix this by cutting up some chequerplate to make a scuffplate, a mod which really needed doing anyway as the plastic bumper there was already scratched, easy to do as you load things into the boot. So I cut the plate to size, painted it, and attached to the bumper by drilling three holes with bolts and very large mudguard washers underneath to spread the load across the thin plastic. Problem solved using shed offcuts, and car improved.
I’ve talked before about how the 86 is a cheaply finished car, and lack of a scuff plate there is another example of cost-cutting, although some more expensive variants and BRZs do come with a protection in that area. Just not my base-model GT. But I don’t need a car to be luxurious to love it.
Oh, and the photo at the top? It’s a model GT86 from AutoArt. If you know someone that loves their car, you now know what gift to buy them. You’re welcome!
other updates
- Toyota 86 review long term – 1
- Toyota 86 review long term – 2
- Toyota 86 review long term – 4
- Toyota 86 review long term – 5
- Toyota 86 review long term – 6
- Toyota 86 review long term – 7
