I bought one of these manifolds last spring, but only got round to having it fitted a year ago.
It's done 7000 miles & it's cracked on the 5th branch. Roger at PowerItalia brought this to my attention when he fitted a new turbo to my Coupe the other week.

So I contacted the seller, and I asked him for a refund. I didn't want a replacement because I believe these manifold are poor quality,
& I'd just end up with the same problem a year or so down the line.

Here's what his reply was:

Hi
Sorry I don't have any left and do not refund as they are sold without any garuntee.
I did replace a couple in the early days at my own discresion but no longer have stock to do that.
Paul.


Nigel is absolutely right, but as you can all now see, Paul is not in the least bit interested!

As a forum member, and a fellow Coupe enthusiast, I think his attitude is appalling!

He stated earlier in this thread:


.....But it's a waste of time! He's just 'washed his hands' of the whole matter!

So, if anybody else on this forum is offered this kind of.....'product' in the future, my advice is:

don't waste your money!

.....please let us know (the moderating team) as his selling permissions have been revoked. We don't need this sort customer "service" on here.

Thank you Stan

Well as he is just reseller or maybe a one time bulk buyer he is legally obliged to offer a 30day money back garrentee at lest and then refer you onto the manufacture, but if it's over a year and he has none in stock or will no longer be buying them because of that reason then that's just sods law, iv got one of these manifolds and it's got crack all over it and it's around 15 months old but I bought because it was cheaper then a cast manifold and if I had a tire custom manifold made it would cost at lest £600+

the only plus side is that it's easier to tig weld and fix then a cast that's a pain to weld but it's cheap yes and personaly yes it is crap but it fits and works well but like all manifolds on these 20vt they all crack sooner then later.

A very good reason to ban the selling of them.

Sorry to start more alarm bells ringing, but I was driving home yesterday, and after I left the motorway I noticed that the car was sounding 'dog rough'

Yeah, you guessed it, the manifold has started to disintegrate! Now I'm off the road until I can source an uncracked original Fiat one, and get it fitted.

I'm not very happy, to put it mildly, so for any others of you out there with one of these manifolds, I urge you to get it checked (and probably replaced) ASAP.

On the bright side, at least I now have an opportunity to take a few bits off the car and get them refurbished. Would rather be driving it though, of course..

sorry to hear it gaz that you like others have brought these pants manifolds and the fact i almost did aswell.

I know of a few of these that have done this. Starting with the welds cracking where the branches join the flange at the cylinder head.

Standard Fiat manifold is the way to go, the latest design only develops superficial cracks at the base that are frankly irrelevant to its operation.

Bought one of these when this guy decided to make and sell them again. Trouble is it's now cracked on most of the welds and lasted about 1/5th the time of my original coupe manifold. fcck2000 (also his ebay name) is completely unprepared to talk to me at all but he will decline close offers on his ebay items after a few hours- funny that!
Anyway i thought i would warn others of his dubious business practices. I wonder if he will talk now????

I've just bought one of the stainless tubular manifold off the bay.

On close inspection the welds were none penetrating and oxidized on the insides.

So far i have re-welded it, shot blasted it and setting up a fixture to skim the mating surfaces.

All of which should have been done by the seller.

To the best of my knowledge no-one has yet come up with a cost-effective alternative to the OE manifold; maybe some of the monster tuners have had a different experience......

There's no escaping the fact that a proper tubular manifold costs strong money, I made my own and the materials cost over a grand, stupid I can imagine you thinking but when there's no off the shelf manifold worth buying I had no choice but to make what I wanted. Like all tuning parts, it's not cheap when you buy it twice.

Manifold was purchased June 2009 and you contact me asking for a refund!
I sold these at around £200 each others have sold the same item for £500 and more.
Stop whining and move on.

But there are off the shelf tubular manifolds for the 20v turbo. The Tigart one is really good and costs around £1200.

Then there's the standard manifold which is very good as they do over 500bhp, but not cheap either. £800 new from Fiat if I remember correctly.

Enviable customer service here.....

The fact is that these manifolds have been repeatedly proven to be unfit for the purpose for which they were sold - ie of unmerchantable quality. The retail price is irrelevant.

In September 2001, after almost a year of negotiations with Fiat, I managed to get about 80 cracked 20vt manifolds repaired free of charge, despite the fact that some of them were up to five years old. Fiat UK clearly recognised their liability and acted accordingly. If they had told me to "stop whining and move on", they would have ended up with a much bigger bill.

Due to the public interest for these manifold failures, this thread will be kept open, but descent into abuse will not be tolerated - keep it civil.

I would also remind Paul of his post on 30 March this year



Perhaps you would like to stand by it?

It's bad to see these manifolds are still being sold in the same quality. I would of thought the manufacture would have sorted he act out by now because like others have said its not fun buying twice.

I think the message to others should be

STICK WITH THE STANDARD MANIFOLD!

It has been proven both by Nigel and barbz to be fine on 400+ bhp coupes

I believe that I am also living proof that regular and hard use is not the reason for cracking of the OE manifold

Mine has now been on the car for at least 200,000 miles

I'm not in a position that fiat are... Did they replace manifolds with a brand new one or repair them? I've offered to repair even after 2 years of use but will certainly not be doing so again.
Read through my original posts when selling the manifolds. They were always sold as a cheap alternative, not an expensive proven product.
I've stopped selling them for well over a year now and have no dealings with the supplier.
At the time of selling them I would at my own discression replace and or refund anyone who had issues, I no longer do this.
Dispute what the witch hunt might be saying only a very small number of the manifolds have failed and this is when they are over 2 years old in some cases. Even this witch hunt thread is only showing a few who have a broken manifold, others are just jumping the witch hunt band wagon.
As I have said all along, manifolds are made of a material that can be easily welded, this is a plus over the cast manifolds which also crack after time.
Paul

Hmmm - if the stainless manifolds are "made of a material that can be easily welded", it questions the welding skills of the manufacturer, who is clearly not capable of doing the job properly in all cases.

There's nothing wrong with a cheap alternative - plenty of Coupe owners fit parts that cost less then an OE replacement. However, it is not reasonable for an item such as an exhaust manifold to have such a short shelf-life - as I said above, it should be fit for the purpose for which it was sold, and failure after a couple of years is definitely not "fit for purpose" - no trading standards officer in the land would argue.

For reference, Fiat replaced any cracked manifolds with brand new items and also for clarity, the OE manifolds don't crack over time, they crack when they are used infrequently and for short journeys. Use the car for regular long journeys and they are supremely durable.

As for not being in a position that Fiat are - again, an irrelevance - you sold a product which is now proving to have an unacceptable failure rate. The size of the organisation does not limit the liability.

Perhaps if you have no longer have dealings with the supplier, you should provide their details, so that owners with cracked manifolds can seek redress (although legally, the liability is yours).

However, I remember only too well how much effort I ended up putting into the Fiat manifold claim, so I'm certainly not going to get further involved in this one.

I've heard some 'satisfied buyers' might be grouping up and are considering legal action.

For now I can only warn people about the inferior quality of MANY products sold on eBay. That includes even BRANDED items eg. there are Brembo discs for sale on the bay that are actually chinese copies and made of maple syrup.

BEST advice: buy from known dealers. Sometimes it's even cheaper.

Of course, if you're on a quest to find bad sellers and want to take them to court... eBay's your little garden of joy.

Oh... as always: people can share their experiences with the admins. We're very interested.

Out of interest what manifolds do you sell and what warranty do you give on them?
Do you give a lifetime one like you seem to think I should?

Vested interest in your last post maybe??

Well if fiat are so good at replacing manifolds maybe you should go back to them again? Or maybe they don't give a lifetime warrant on them! Why do you expect me to?
Please feel free to report me to eBay and trading standards and even take a case in the small claims against me.
I'm sure every court in the land will back up a exhaust should last a lifetime even when sold as seen.
The company who supplied them in china have now gone bust so not much point chasing your tail on that either.

Did I not supply you one and replace it for free?

Paul

I don't sell manifolds, other than the occasional secondhand OE item

A lifetime warranty would probably be regarded as unreasonable, but a 2-year lifespan is unacceptable for an item that would normally be regarded as much more durable. It's hardly a wear & tear item and for the vast majority of vehilces, it IS a lifetime item. Even Ferrari had an out-of-warranty replacement policy for the regular exhaust manifold failures on the F355 - this was solely down to the fact that it was perfectly reasonable to expect such an item not to fail.

Out of interest what manifolds do you sell and what warranty do you give on them?
Do you give a lifetime one like you seem to think I should?

Vested interest in your last post maybe??

Did I supply you one and replace it for free?

Paul

To be fair, if these manifolds went wrong after a year when they were out of warranty, there's nothing you can do about it legally.

They were cheap and looked it as well. If people don't want to spend money on proper OE parts or parts that are proven, I don't think they should be complaining a year or two afterwards.

The point is: they shouldn't even be SOLD. 'Looked cheap' is not something you can use in a defence. People hear the price of a new manifold, it's £1.000. They find a 20vt manifold somewhere else, for £250 they think it's because it's not got a Fiat stamp on it. You can't expect 'normal' people to know about how a quality exhaust manifold looks, leave alone have the knowledge to judge welding or strength of the material.

That said, it's amazing to see the opportunities for making money by getting something made in china. Don't care if it's crap or not. I had a set of replica Ferrari rims that were donated by someone to make a table of. They dented when I put them on the floor.

Not all stuff from China fails, most of the stuff in the world is made in China.
The supplier also made 16vt manifolds which have been sold all over the world by the thousands.

Thanks for the post
I guess you never bought one then..
Paul