08TxRunner
Member
Cloud9 - you're overreacting to the aluminum oxidation. As anyone who lives within 10 miles of the ocean will tell you, that is perfectly normal.
**UPDATE** - DT has made right - Buyer Beware - Doug Thorley Headers
- Thread starter Marfy
- Start date
Cloud9
New member
I think you are. That's your opinion and I welcome it and I have mine. I sent those pics to 3 guys I work with and they said the same. The one is 70 and been wrenching on cars wince he was 16. If you live in an area where stuff like that happens, no matter what you drive you need to take precautions. And you take a car that has those spots and the under carriage will not be looking hapopy on a 15 year old truck. I live in DC and you can't just drive and forget the world doesn't exist beneath you. It will destroy your truck. That POR-15 probably saved me from some serious welding to my frame. It takes a long time for that to happen on alum valve covers was the point unless it's very extreme.
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Inv4drZm
Senior Member
But would it be your fault that they rusted if you were told it was made from SS and bought them because of that?
What if Toyota listed their frames as stainless steel, but decided to make a couple critical crossmembers from carbon steel without advertising it and you had discovered they rusted out after a year?
Marfy
New member
Don’t waste your breath, this guy is really stuck on the fact that I live in a salt mine and that is why half of my headers rusted. He still hasn’t answered why the injection tube looks different than my headers.
Also, despite my better judgement, I cleaned my engine bay as this guy is shaming me lol. A lot of that corrosion was dirt... that’s what makes it more frustrating not that it is even relevant.
There’s always one troll...
phqduphead
New member
Buyer Beware - Doug Thorley Headers
[emoji23] Cloud9 seems to be a troll. Looking at his post history I bet he knows the guy from burtman industries.
Thanks OP and others posting. I was about to purchase some DT headers as preventative maintenance since my stock manifold is approaching 14 years old and 135k, still good BTW, but now I’ll just wait for them to fail and get new a Toyota manifold when that happens.
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[emoji23] Cloud9 seems to be a troll. Looking at his post history I bet he knows the guy from burtman industries.
Thanks OP and others posting. I was about to purchase some DT headers as preventative maintenance since my stock manifold is approaching 14 years old and 135k, still good BTW, but now I’ll just wait for them to fail and get new a Toyota manifold when that happens.
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Marfy
New member
Wait for it to fail, then make a decision. What would be really awesome is if DT changes things and makes them fully stainless for an extra 100-200 bucks.
Appreciate your support.
Cloud9
New member
THat's what I did. I bought new manifolds Twice from Toyota. They only offer 1 year warranty or 12k miles. I've actually been working with my dealer and they filed a case for me to get my labor costs back for the 2nd set, they won't do anything for the first set. Toyota knows they made headers that implode and break. More people should be upset at this fact. I just have a smile on my face with I take road trips with the wife and getting a lot better mileage even when I'm towing.
HiLex
New member
Wow this turned into a shit show. I have been running various headers for over 30 years on the central coast in California. Yes at pismo on the beach in salt water. All we had all we used was VHT spray paint. If you dont rinse off your vehicle and clean it the elements will kill and metal parts judging from your pics and the amount of corrosion on all the metal in the pic you may want to move some where more metal friendly as Canada and the Northeast USA are notorious for rust and will rust any make and model of vehicle in a short time due to what they put in the roads for a good portion of the year. I currently live in the rocky mountains and yes we have had some nasty winters. I have one of the first set of Thorley headers on the 4.7 I spray off my under carriage and engine compartment regularly because I know it will corrode. 4 years on my truck and yes some discoloration and even cracks in the coating 70,000 miles and I don't have the rust issue you have. THORLEY makes good products and will stand behind them material and workmanship. Even Toyota has only a 1 year warranty so it has to be someone else's fault you don't properly maintain your vehicle. As with any coating it gets hot and cools creating cracks of exposing pin holes allowing water and corrosive to get to the metal without rinsing or cleaning it will attack the metal at a rapid pace with the heating and cooling cycle. Stop bashing and accept some of the responsibility. You failed to mention Thorleys plan of action to correct the issue. Other than you weren't happy with it good luck getting any powder coated bumpers and sliders with a rust or coating warranty.
*Aside from not using Stainless Steel in the entirety of the headers construction despite not mentioning this to the consumer
Other than that they stand by their products!
**Aside from saying their warranty doesn't cover corrosion due to not using Stainless Steel as advertised
It's weird how you two just keep ignoring that Doug Thorley falsely advertise using full stainless steel. If they used SS in the entirety of the construction we wouldn't be having this discussion. OP's photos show the SS portion of the headers being perfectly fine and it's only the non-SS portion that is rusted to hell. Why do you keep defending THORLEY and ignoring this crucial part of the discussion? Did THORLEY personally give you a reach around with your purchase of headers?
OP was told Stainless Steel and he shouldn't need to be scrubbing his headers every week incase Doug Thorley lied that other metals other than SS was used on the headers.
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Marfy
New member
Go back and read my first post to explain how I failed to do anything. I know reading isn’t for everyone so don’t feel bad.
HiLex, can you answer why the injection tubes look different than the headers?
Terminator03
New member
It really strikes me as weird how some shift the blame to the OP for not taking good enough care of his truck, or just living in a shitty place. Even if all of that were true, it shouldn’t matter since we all bought a product that was advertised as having a lifetime warranty (limited or not), and being made from stainless, which was clearly misrepresented. 2 years is not unreasonable to expect a lifetime product, supposedly made from stainless to still look intact! Those air tubes WILL fail, and then what’s he supposed to do? Even if he wanted to go through the labor and cost to remove them, I wouldn’t want THAT set re-coated because they will need to sandblast them for prep, which will remove all of that corrosion, and at the same time make the tubing walls even thinner because that corrosion was once part of the wall thickness! They may look like new when returned, but will fail even faster next time. The best bet would be for them to be replaced with a new set, or better yet, an earlier version without air tubes, then find a way to delete the air injection system altogether, if that’s even possible on these trucks, I don’t know because I don’t have it on mine. The only other option would be to find a good fab guy that could replicate the tubes in stainless and have them replaced. No really easy, or good options here unfortunately. The lifetime warranty appears to ONLY cover the coating itself from the way it looks... they should specify that in their advertising as well.
Inv4drZm
Senior Member
The problem here is DT can't have it both ways. If they don't tell the customer exactly what is in their products they should be responsible for holding up their warranty.
If at the very least they change the material description to CS and SS then that would absolve them of warranty claims from rust. But they didn't.
All we are asking is that they change the material construction description at the very least. And offer a full SS header at the very most.
If at the very least they change the material description to CS and SS then that would absolve them of warranty claims from rust. But they didn't.
All we are asking is that they change the material construction description at the very least. And offer a full SS header at the very most.
I honestly think Doug Thorley himself met up with [MENTION=130199]HiLex[/MENTION] and [MENTION=261255]Cloud9[/MENTION] in a motel and were given reach-arounds as part of their header purchases. I honestly can't see how or why else they would so blindly absolve Doug Thorley of ALL fault. Sure they had good personal experiences but aren't we all consumers and 4runner owners? We are on the same team and spend our hard earned money on these supposedly all SS headers. Can we all agree that they are at least PARTLY at fault for only advertising SS construction when CS was used [MENTION=130199]HiLex[/MENTION] and [MENTION=261255]Cloud9[/MENTION] ??? Can we at least agree that if the air injection tubes were made out of SS we wouldn't be having this discussion?
Or are we just going to keep stroking Doug Thorley and put the entire blame on OP and others for not washing their engine bay on a weekly basis? Use your head for one second and ask yourself is it reasonable for someone who bought SS headers (Stainless steel doesn't freaking rust) to wash their engine bay on a weekly basis and to move to another country where rust isn't a problem?
V8Man
Member
For all vehicles to be sold in the US, the OEM must warrantee their emission control devices for 5 years or 100,000 miles. Since the exhaust is part of the emission control system the OEMs started making these components out of stainless steel instead of carbon steel or aluminum.
It appears that DT went cheap to save a few bucks. Their claim that the headers are made of stainless appears to be true, but the air injection tubes are not. The polished finish and coatings doesn’t protect the exhaust parts since the metal failure comes from the temperatures and moisture inside the exhaust system.
I think the cracked factory exhaust is caused by the weight and closeness of the catalytic converters. Knock on wood, but none of my V8’s have suffered the cracking and they haven’t been off-road at all.
It appears that DT went cheap to save a few bucks. Their claim that the headers are made of stainless appears to be true, but the air injection tubes are not. The polished finish and coatings doesn’t protect the exhaust parts since the metal failure comes from the temperatures and moisture inside the exhaust system.
I think the cracked factory exhaust is caused by the weight and closeness of the catalytic converters. Knock on wood, but none of my V8’s have suffered the cracking and they haven’t been off-road at all.
volkinator
New member
This is my question... Has it failed or does it just look bad? And maybe a stupid question, but what are they even for?
Marfy
New member
No failure yet but this is only two years in.
[MENTION=130199]HiLex[/MENTION] don’t forget to upload shots of your injection tubes!
The Secondary Air Injection System (SAIS) is for smog control, fresh air is injected into the exhaust stream to allow for a fuller combustion of exhaust gases. It is widely regarded as preventive maintenance to disable the system, if permissible.
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