Somewhere to weld a manifold in the Midlands?

[ee_cc]

I've got a cracked exhaust manifold on my Accord that's well outside of Honda's extended warranty.
I've seen F6HAD on here saying he can do a fixed price repair on them up in Bradford but does anyone know anywhere that would offer a similar service around Birmingham/Coventry/Leicester?

 

[F6HAD]

Bring it up mate, plenty of people do from all over the UK. We know our way around them but still need most of the day to remove, repair and refit. It's not an impossible job for a decent garage to do, but you'll find that bolts often seize up and if you aren't careful, the turbo can get damaged.

 

[Goodluckmonkey]

Fahad's right. The manifold to elbow and manifold to turbo studs may as well be made from compressed cream cheese.

 

[ee_cc]

Thanks for the input guys.
F6HAD, I'll try and find some time to get up to you I think.

 

[ee_cc]

Well that didn't go as planned...
I went up last Saturday and was told that if I could get up there for 11am the job would be done by about 5pm. Well it was closer to 10pm by the time I left Bradford.
Timing I can forgive, things take time.
But:

• When I left, the car was in limp mode, Fahad diagnosed this as a blocked EGR valve which of course wasn't within their remit to fix.
• Off I went down the motorway and 30 minutes later the cabin started to fill with those familiar diesel fumes.
• Over the next few days, after eliminating a blocked EGR valve as the culprit I narrowed the problem down to the solenoid control valve for the EGR valve. The little black filter on it came off when i touched it, it had been broken previously and superglued back on. Of course the mechanics deny breaking this but all I know is that it worked fine before the day trip to Bradford.

So now I'm pretty much back at square 1 with the car. I've spent 15 hours and £200 on a manifold repair that didn't work and another day's diagnosis and £25 on a new valve to replace the one that was broken.

I've had all the promises in the world that they will put it right if I make another 5 hour round trip for them to look at it. Sorry guys, the first time I trusted you with my car it left more broken than when I gave it to you. There's no way I'm wasting another day.

And a couple of thing that I think should be on record in case anyone else ever comes across this thread:

• F6HAD offers this service to people on this forum but as soon as there are any problems he will throw up his hands and say he has nothing to do with it and that his mechanic mate is the one you need to talk to because they have nothing to do with eachother. Not the worst crime in the world but it's just bad business and makes you seem slippery not to be transparent about this from the outset.
• The method they use to fix the manifolds is a bit dubious in my opinion. When (after the job was done) I asked how they prevented the flanges from warping during welding I simply got told that they didn't. They just throw it on the bench, weld it up, put it back in with the same gaskets and hope for the best. I must have heard "but we've never had a single one fail" a 50 times at this point. I even got told that I should have thought to supply my own gasket if I was worried about leaks on the flanges.

I made the trip to get this job done based on the solid reputation I read about on this forum. Just goes to show that you shouldn't trust the internet!

 

[F6HAD]

Calum it would be easy for me to delete this post, but I won't. You're entitled to your opinion, and your side of the story is just one side of the story.

Far from washing my hands of you, I tried very hard to offer you a resolution which included funding a solution to your egr problem out of my own pocket (despite me not having taken a penny from you or ever touched your car). I did this to preserve my own reputation which I've worked extremely hard to build and for you not to feel like you're being ignored in any way.

You're insisting on a full refund without giving my mechanic the opportunity to even check the car and rectify any work. So yes in the end I suggested you speak directly to my mechanic and cut me out of the loop if you wanted to maintain this position.

If the job wasn't right you shouldn't have paid the guy and taken the car. However you feel about us, the fact is there are countless examples of happy customers who are more than happy to travel much further distances than you have to avail our services.

You may be right, the manifold may still be leaking, but without letting the mechanic see it.. How can you expect him to solve it? Please don't tell me your time is more precious than someone else's. He worked the entire day on your car into the late hours wrestling with seized bolts and everything in between. His time is also worth something.

I will close this thread here. If you want to give him the opportunity to solve the issue, just call.

Thanks.