[r33_RGSport]

Originally Posted by karimbennis

Here is the story:


I ordered secondary downpipes from extreme power house under the brand of Evolution Racewerks. Once I have received them, I had them installed by my local BMW dealership. I insisted on doing it in my dealership to have qualified labour working on my car. Once the dealership installed the downpipes they told me it was extremely hard to make them fit as the part where the secondary downpipes hooks to the stock primary ones does not align very well as there was very little flex with the downpipes in the area where it was supposed to flex. They were very hard to clamp to the primary downpipes. After 6 hours of labour and a lot of fidgeting they got them to fit. As soon as they started the car up, and the car warmed up, a check engine light came on.

The mechanics were very confused as there was no O2 sensor after the primary downpipes, therefore there is no possible way for the car to sense that there are secondary downpipes installed on the car. They also have done this job previously with eisenmann seconday downpipes and they did not have any issues ( fit much better and were much easier to install ). They ran a scan on the car and saw there was an issue with the intake manifold. The dealership even opened a PUMA case with BMW Canada to try to find the issue. The car threw a check-engine code that advertised a low pressure on the driver side bank of the intake manifold. To confirm that the dealership proceeded with smoke test which helped them identify where the leak is. Using a tiny camera they were able to find where the leak was. After 12 hours of customer paid diagnosis, they found a part of the intake manifold that runs right next to the driver side downpipe, was melted due to the poor fitment and routing of the downpipe. The downpipe runs too close to the plastic part of the intake manifold which made a hole in the intake manifold.

The dealership confirmed it was the poor design or construction of this specific downpipe caused the damage and not an an installation issue. At this point in time I'm stuck with a MASSIVE bill to fix my car and replace the intake manifold of the car.

The downpipes are is defective and have VERY poor fitment and caused damages to my car as assessed by the BMW dealership. You can refer to the pictures attached for reference to this case.

You can see what the engineer wrote at the dealership. I took pictures of exactly what shows on the the screen of my service advisor.

I did get in contact with ER and Fred Su, we had lengthy conversations about 4 Months ago. Now that I got my car back and its working just fine. He said they would cover the expenses for repairing my car if I could prove their downpipe caused the damages to my car. This took some time because BMW needed to get parts from Germany to fix the car. Now that its all done and good to go. We'll see how it goes with ER.

Thank you for the share.

My apology if I offend you on my previous reply. You may be a lurker and decided to come online and share your experience instead of just giving a statement without proof.
Again, greatly appreciate the info.

I am somewhat fortunate since my shop to ER is very close, even though both ER and I have moved to different location couple times and even without planning, our location ended up really close to each other.

I do help him with a few development cars and test fit products, and provide him with some pictures and feedbacks.
I am going to swing by their place today, I'll have a talk with him.

[Higgs Boson]

So the secondary downpipes melted the intake manifold in the time it took for the car to warm up to operating temperature....... customer paid 12 hours of diag time to smoke the intake?

Someone is getting fleeced.

Also, isn't there a heat shield between the intake and downpipe? Was it not reinstalled?

[ss_m5]

I have 1000 miles on mine since I installed it. The fitment for sure is an issue but other issues like leaks and rattles I have nothing to report. The only reason I would go Keller or MSR is for the .5 increase for performance that's why I mentioned it. The car is going back for an oil change to the shop that did the DP install. They said they would inspect the install to see if they can see any issues.

[KBM5]

Originally Posted by r33_RGSport

Thank you for the share.

My apology if I offend you on my previous reply. You may be a lurker and decided to come online and share your experience instead of just giving a statement without proof.
Again, greatly appreciate the info.

I am somewhat fortunate since my shop to ER is very close, even though both ER and I have moved to different location couple times and even without planning, our location ended up really close to each other.

I do help him with a few development cars and test fit products, and provide him with some pictures and feedbacks.
I am going to swing by their place today, I'll have a talk with him.

I completely understand. And I did not get offended by any means.What I'm sticking to facts and providing as much documentation as I can in regards to my situation. In no way am I trying to worsen ER reputation. On the contrary I believe they have great customer support in my experience and I definitely recommend their products for N55.

Did something go wrong with my secondary downpipes? Yes. Is ER working with me to find a solution to my issue in the most curious and respectful possible manner. Absolutely yes.

[KBM5]

Originally Posted by Higgs Boson

So the secondary downpipes melted the intake manifold in the time it took for the car to warm up to operating temperature....... customer paid 12 hours of diag time to smoke the intake?

Someone is getting fleeced.

Also, isn't there a heat shield between the intake and downpipe? Was it not reinstalled?

Please read the BMW dealership service report. It did not take them 12 hours to do a smoke test, but 12 hours to find the issue. They proceed in order of steps prescribed by BMW Canada through a platform called PUMA (PUMA Case). It took them 12 hours to find the issue. They even used a tiny camera to try to get to take a picture of where the intake manifold was melted. Thats how hard it was to spot and how deep it was in the engine bay.

As for the heat shield, there is one, it never got removed in the first place. From what the dealership explains the downpipes fitment caused excessive heat to radiate on the Intake manifold which then in turn melted it.

[edwarjejeega]

Originally Posted by KBM5

Please read the BMW dealership service report. It did not take them 12 hours to do a smoke test, but 12 hours to find the issue. They proceed in order of steps prescribed by BMW Canada through a platform called PUMA (PUMA Case). It took them 12 hours to find the issue. They even used a tiny camera to try to get to take a picture of where the intake manifold was melted. Thats how hard it was to spot and how deep it was in the engine bay.

As for the heat shield, there is one, it never got removed in the first place. From what the dealership explains the downpipes fitment caused excessive heat to radiate on the Intake manifold which then in turn melted it.

Did you get Keller, MSR or Eisenmann secondary downpipes after your rebuild? How did that install go?