Exhaust Manifold "Stressed"

al_kh89

New member
Hi all,

Recently, the engine warning light came on in my '05 2.2l Z4, so I took the car to a local garage, who told me it was a lambda sensor, and replaced it for £161. However, two or three weeks later it came on again, and I took it back to the same garage. This time, they said it was producing an error that they don't know the cause of or the solution to; so I took it to BMW.

BMW said that they can't find much wrong with it either. Their answer was "we can't see anything seriously wrong, so we've reset the light and you can have it back." However, they said that there were "stress cracks" in the exhaust manifold which could grow into a bigger problem, so if I wanted them to replace the manifold for £2,260 then they'd do so. Obviously, I didn't ask them to, because that's more than a quarter of the value of the car.

I've read online that cracks in the exhaust manifold can be welded shut. Has anyone had this done? Would you recommend it? I'm gonna leave it until the light comes back on again, but if/when it does I'd rather have it welded for £500 than replaced for £2,200... I just wondered if anyone knows how reliable this solution is, and if anyone knows a good garage in SE London/Kent that would do it?

Thanks in advance.
 
All metels can be welded it's just a question of process, some metals are more complex to do than others.For example cast metals need to be pre and post heated to prevent the area around the weld cracking again. Any time you weld metal you get a heat affected zone, that zone is a weak area.The pre and post heating restructures the crystaline structure of the metal to prevent this.
 
£2,260 to replace an exhaust manifold even from BMW seems excessive. That price must be wrong.
 
If you haven't dealt with it yet, you'd migt consider the stainless manifold + 200 cps metallic catalyst package from Schmiedmann. Frees up a few horses while fixing the problem.
 
srhutch said:
£2,260 to replace an exhaust manifold even from BMW seems excessive. That price must be wrong.
I'm with you there... you can buy a stainless manifold for a fraction of that price... :thumbsdown:
 
Tommy_hf said:
If you haven't dealt with it yet, you'd migt consider the stainless manifold + 200 cps metallic catalyst package from Schmiedmann. Frees up a few horses while fixing the problem.

did you mean this one :
http://www.schmiedmann.nl/Z_series/Z4_E85/equipment_-_accesoires/tuning/pagina5.htm#1939069

how many horses would we be talking over ? around 10 hp ?
 
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