Glad to see someone finally man up.

 

There appears to be a crack in the outlet pipe too. I think the entire end piece was tweeked some how...putting stress against this side. That's why you see both the pipe and the molding on the front broken off.




But there's something I don't quite get here....

Your pick shows that extruded portion sticking out next to the two square holes (you can see a faint *oval* line around it)..where the front seems to have snapped off it.
Here is another stock IC and I don't see that molded portion sticking out??



Here' another that shows it though:

 

Looks like you and I have the same luck andrew .... un momento, let me get pics of my IC end tank that blew up

 

 

You aren't gonna be able to put it back to stock and take it in. The car will not start without any pressure through the system. It's not worth it anyway - just go out and buy an end tank with no plastic.



On a side note, it seems to be happening to only the cold side end tank of all the IC end tanks that have blown up dramatically like Andrew's, mine and the other dude that had the same thing happen.

 

Its kinda suprizing how often this happens to people. Just had one go out on an employees wrx a few weeks ago.

 

Its the darn plastic... One little tweak here or there, a cold morning, a quick boost spike and pop goes the weasel.

 

That's the side that gets tweaked on parking bumpers when angle parking too.

 

But no one EVER hits their intercooler on them. It's a warranty issue! It's GM's fault. Wha-wha-wha.

There's evidence of hitting stuff in the earlier picture. If you want less risk of that happening there are some mighty easy steps. None of them which involve buying stuff.

Don't lower your car.
Don't run aftermarket pipes with short couplers (pretty much everyone except ZZP)
Make sure your charge pipe has the recall done
Remove the condensation bar and jbweld/epoxy the holes.

If you still break one after following these steps, then let's talk. Bring pictures of the bottom of the IC.

 

Treadstone has a intercooler only for 250 on their site, don't know if it's a direct replacement but something to look into.

 

Ok mine blew up on the cold side plastic.

No damage to the car, never bottomed it out (not even a daily driver car I only drive it on weekends)

Car was not lowered at the time

Charge pipe recal was done

I had Injen charge pipe with the long silicone couplers and that was on the hot side

and I did not epoxy the holes because I felt it was a defect in manufacturing and I should no have to glue things shut from OEM.

It was a wet cold day and I spiked to 25 psi and it blew up.

Took it to the dealership and they replaced it because the could not find any damage at all!

 

What does the condensation bar do, and how well does it work at its intended purpose?

 

QFT ..... This is half the problem with people today ..... they won't take responsibility for their own actions. "oh I'd raise a **** storm and scream till they warrantied it " BULLSHIT. ******* man up and pay to play......just like the OP is .

 

Well im still 100% stock so im allowed to raise a **** storm up about it lol

 

To my knowledge it is not a direct fit with stock pipes but you would have to confirm that with them. Their intercooler is very very nice and it is actually higher that the stock one so no bashing it on curbs.

Not if you bash the **** out of it on a curb though.

 

Please, get real... People are blowing IC's with their cars completely stock. As was said earlier, the GMS1 boosts just as high as Trifect/Hp tunes.

Everyone loves to talk all the **** about how you gotta pay to play, until it's their own car, then they go running back to remove tunes, put back intakes, etc.

Just because I run a tune on my car does not give the whole care an excuse to not work correctly.

The other half of problems with people today are the holier then thou attitudes...

 

Well bitch away then but..... any dealer can refuse any warranty work on anything for any reason ....so .....maybe treating the service manager like a human might get you further .

 

Get real yourself ..... if people are blowing their intercoolers stock odds are they hit something ...... but there can be manufacturer defects .


I'm not holier than thou..... I just take responsibility for my own actions .....like most adults .

 

alot of issues when its plastic check out a stock srt4 or evos intercooler that **** isnt plastic lol but i do understand where your coming from

 

You sound like a GM service writer, try to find every little way to blame an issue on user error... I didn't say if you are running your own custom tune you wrote and you blow your motor, that GM should cover it.

People have been blowing their stock intercoolers and they have been getting them replaced under warranty. If they hit something and it's obvious that's what broke it, they would be voiding warranties on their intercoolers, but they aren't.

You are not trying to be an adult, you're trying to be a holier then thou. Like I said, I would bet that 99% of you that start with this pay to play crap in every ******* thread on this site, would be the first ones to go crying to GM when they deny a warranty claim of yours. It's ******* annoying, stfu with the you gotta pay to play crap. GM has defective parts that are defective from the factory that should be replaced whether you have an intake, or a tune, or a new downpipe. Not every issue that arises is because of a part you put on the car, and on the other hand, not every part you put on your car is safe. But to say that his tune, or hitting something is 100% the reason his IC blew is bullshit. He found it better for him to go aftermarket rather then try to warranty it, that's his decision and that's fine. But if I blow my IC, knowing I have never hit anything and I have mods, I am going to expect GM to warranty it because I am NOT doing anything to it that the GMS1 wouldn't do to it.

 

And when that service writer denies It even though its 100% stock Ill go to the Serv manager and if hes the same then onto the big GM upstairs! so on and so forth. I will win. By the way my godfather is a service manage so im pretty positive this wont happen to me. Ive had a whole damn mirror assembly replaced under warranty when some jackass hit it while backing up.
He was a service writer/tech or something. He used to post up all kinds of TSB's on here before he quit or got laid off or whatever.

 

They emailed me back that you would have to buy two elbows, silicone couplers and t-bolt clamps with it

 

It is probably worth it... It is a very nice piece.

 

Something I find gets overlooked a lot with issues like these, is the amount of research and development that go into a car prior to it being sold to the general public. The general rule of thumb, is that it takes 10 years to go from concept/design to production. During the course of that time, and more directly in reference to this situation, there is extensive research and development on the components, such as the intercooler.

It seems to me to be a completely illogical move for an automanufacturer to not test an integral component such as the intercooler prior to release of it. It is safe to assume they took the intercooler, connected it to the system, and probably blasted a good 30-50psi through it continuously until it broke. Then revised the design until the fault tolerance level was within a level they could safely deploy and warranty for x amount of years. If they released it, and the product broke all the time on every person, well, a 400$ part X the amount of cars sold = more money than anyone would rightly want to pay.

Therefore it is safe to assume that when the intercooler breaks, logic dictates there is a very specific question to ask. Why did it break? Upon investigation, you would find that in almost every single case, there is an outside circumstance that is the direct result of the failure. If there is no outside circumstance, then the contracted company that is making the product (intercooler) gets called into question, and that is a nasty situation that ends companies. GM would take legal action on the subcontractor of the intercoolers etc.

So, that being said, when an intercooler breaks is it more likely its the result of extraneous circumstance/abuse? Or is it more likely that a company with everything to lose would risk it all by producing a product below its contracted specifications, hope that gm doesnt notice all the warranty claims, and pray that no action is taken against them? Mistakes do occur but it is not by any means the norm.

 

Meh...all I know is there was no physical damage to my intercooler and in blew under boost that is no higher than gm stage 1. If there was physical damage I would not have brought it in for a a warranty claim.