Dinan X-Pipe Safety Notice

[///M Ryder]

As the title of my thread states, this is a potential safety issue that I wanted to bring to everyone's attention that owns a Dinan Mid Exhaust (x-pipe). Some of you may be aware of the potential for the tig weld that holds the resonator to the pipe to crack. This issue was not known to me until I experienced it first hand. A quick google search will bring a few results but I thought it would be a good idea for you'll to hear from someone that believes in the Dinan brand. So, some of you may be asking, how will I know if mine is cracked. Well, there are a couple of ways to tell. First, a visual inspection is the quickest way to tell....look for condensation around the welds. If you have dried up water marks, you probably have an exhaust leak. Next, and this was my first sign that something was wrong. You'll start to smell more exhaust than you initially did. After time you get used to the smell, but if you start to say, "damn my exhaust smell is bad", you probably have an exhaust leak. Third sign, again I had this symptom......your exhaust starts to sound like it's gurgling and you hear those great rev matches on the side area of the car......you probably have an exhaust leak. So upon on further inspection I found a few small cracks in some welds. But to my surprise I actually found a crack on the rear section side of the system too.

Next set of steps......I contact my go to Dinan guy and he tells me, "let me get with Dinan and we'll go from there". After a couple of days I hear back from him and Dinan says the initial photos I sent him seem odd. They haven't seen those welds go bad but they are aware of the tig weld giving up. Now at this point I was still not aware of the tig weld crack. Dinan response by saying, "the mid exhaust is a race only product so there's no warranty". I'm ok with that until I hear this. We believe this happened because your customer tracks his car. Now you know I'm beyond pissed when I hear this. Why make a race only product that can't withstand the rigors of the track. Now, before some of you start to go left, there's more. After more conversation with Dinan, my guy tells me that collectively they have decided to replace my rear section with the unusual crack under warranty. Now keep in mind my rear section is 4 years old. This was the type of service I was expecting from Dinan.

So back to the mid exhaust......after hearing the replacement news I decided to proceed with the mid exhaust repair myself. After dropping the exhaust I couldn't believe what I saw. The picture below is worth a thousand words. Sure enough the tig weld had cracked. Please pay attention to this part. The resonator was being held on by about 2.5" of weld. My first thought was, if I were on track and this weld broke off, how catastrophic would this have been? Here's my real issue with all of this. Dinan has a fix for the tig welds but they haven't made it know to the owners of this exhaust. They use some type of gusset to secure it in the event of a failure. So I'm asking all of you with this mid exhaust to take some time and drop it and inspect it. It could save you a lot of heartache later. Hell, it may even prevent a accident if this gives way while you're traveling at freeway speeds.

I hope you found this informative and not a bash Dinan thread. My goal was to bring this to your attention and to give Dinan a way to offer the repair items before something bad happens. I would also like to give props to my Dinan guru Scott from BMW of Houston North. Scott never says no and he's always trying to do what's right for the customer. Also, Dinan did come through on the new rear section with a warranty replacement...........Phil

[MFL]

If that broke completely, you would be fine. There's 6 mounting points on the catback, and 4 excluding the headers and the clamps holding the mid section to the catback. Not to mention the cross member preventing the section from falling further.

Dinan is complete overpriced shit.

[s85e90]

Originally Posted by MFL

If that broke completely, you would be fine. There's 6 mounting points on the catback, and 4 excluding the headers and the clamps holding the mid section to the catback. Not to mention the cross member preventing the section from falling further.

Dinan is complete overpriced shit.

Yes, it wouldn't have been an issue to totally break and yes, Dinan parts are overpriced crap. But the masses would rather buy the Dinan badge... I mean, my custom x pipe hasn't cracked? And I'm selling for $ 500

[///M Ryder]

Originally Posted by MFL

If that broke completely, you would be fine. There's 6 mounting points on the catback, and 4 excluding the headers and the clamps holding the mid section to the catback. Not to mention the cross member preventing the section from falling further.

Dinan is complete overpriced shit.

You say all would have been fine but I say, I don't want to test your theory. So again, I know the bashing will come but that definitely wasn't my goal.....Phil

[MilehighM3]

Do you have any additional info or availability on the gussets? I may just fab my own to repair the weak point. A weld broken like that shows a poor quality weld. Either do to improper/inadequate prep, contaminants in the weld or poor heat penetration. The picture you posted is a pretty nasty failure.

[OneMmmm]

I replaced my Dinan setup with Akrapovic late last year. I didn't acknowledge how poor Dinan's welding was until I laid the Akrapovic next to it. It is astonishingly bad.

[Patrón]

Originally Posted by s85e90

Yes, it wouldn't have been an issue to totally break and yes, Dinan parts are overpriced crap. But the masses would rather buy the Dinan badge... I mean, my custom x pipe hasn't cracked? And I'm selling for $ 500

How many championships has your welder won? How many races has your welder won? How many cars have raced ever where your welder participated in the build? My guess is zero and your pipe looks like shit.

[Lucrecio84]

the SAME thing happened to mine when I ran their race mid pipe along with both of my other friends that ran it. Its unbelievable that they come up with BS excuses and try and blame it on the driver instead of their product when it has literally happened to almost every person I know with their down pipe. Over priced POS couldn't be a better way to describe their X-pipe

[pbonsalb]

Originally Posted by Patrón

How many championships has your welder won? How many races has your welder won? How many cars have raced ever where your welder participated in the build? My guess is zero and your pipe looks like shit.

Looks aren't everything, especially in places no one sees. And Dinan's championship race welder x-pipe apparently isn't worth double the price since it failed.

[s85e90]

Originally Posted by Patrón

How many championships has your welder won? How many races has your welder won? How many cars have raced ever where your welder participated in the build? My guess is zero and your pipe looks like shit.

This may be the stupidest thing I have read here. But it qualifies the m3 mentality. Must buy expensive parts no matter how quickly they fall apart.


I'm curious though. What makes my x pipe look like shit? The welds are great, it's coated black so you can't really see anything. It's modeled after oem/dinan exact shape (dinan is 2.75"). It's splayed at the back just like many other pipes (see Gintani).

So you seem to know a lot about it, so what makes mine bad? Mine certainly never failed.

[Mpoweroo1]

It is not only Dinan. I have had welds fail on Super Sprint and B&B Triflow. Every company runs into issues now and again, what matters is how they remedy the situation!

[s85e90]

Originally Posted by Mpoweroo1

It is not only Dinan. I have had welds fail on Super Sprint and B&B Triflow. Every company runs into issues now and again, what matters is how they remedy the situation!

Sadly as nice as super sprint is I have also had to mufflers crack along the welds

[Hujan]

Bummer. Still looking for a used Dinan CF intake, though.

[Patrón]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

Looks aren't everything, especially in places no one sees. And Dinan's championship race welder x-pipe apparently isn't worth double the price since it failed.

pretty disappointing that no one is replacing that part. i didn't read where it was purchased but i've never heard of a dealership not replacing parts when necessary.

[Patrón]

Originally Posted by s85e90

This may be the stupidest thing I have read here. But it qualifies the m3 mentality. Must buy expensive parts no matter how quickly they fall apart.


I'm curious though. What makes my x pipe look like shit? The welds are great, it's coated black so you can't really see anything. It's modeled after oem/dinan exact shape (dinan is 2.75"). It's splayed at the back just like many other pipes (see Gintani).

So you seem to know a lot about it, so what makes mine bad? Mine certainly never failed.

you shit on m3 owners in every other post, your other posts are hijacking people's exhaust or xpipe threads with trying to sell your flea market part.

what's wrong with it? you tell me. it hasn't sold. quality parts at fair market prices sell on here pretty quick. perhaps it's the way your rear connection bows out like crazy. i've done a bit of research on xpipes and none of the manuf. bow out like that. good luck selling your hacked parts and keep up the condescending posts towards bmw and m3 owners.

[Atomicteal_M3]

My Dinan midpipe tig weld cracked in the same place.

[pbonsalb]

Originally Posted by Patrón

pretty disappointing that no one is replacing that part. i didn't read where it was purchased but i've never heard of a dealership not replacing parts when necessary.

I think Dinan did replace this particular pipe, although generally there is no warranty on race only parts.

[s85e90]

Originally Posted by Patrón

you shit on m3 owners in every other post, your other posts are hijacking people's exhaust or xpipe threads with trying to sell your flea market part.

what's wrong with it? you tell me. it hasn't sold. quality parts at fair market prices sell on here pretty quick. perhaps it's the way your rear connection bows out like crazy. i've done a bit of research on xpipes and none of the manuf. bow out like that. good luck selling your hacked parts and keep up the condescending posts towards bmw and m3 owners.

I'm done with you. I'm sorry if you think my posts are condescending to others. I'm trying to shed some light here that just because something has a badge on it doesn't make it a better part than something non-branded. Shit, IPE is made in Taiwan but everyone raves over it. This isn't the first Dinan x pipe to fail and not be covered under warranty.

Calling my parts "hacked" or "flea-market" is disingenuous and wrong of you as you have never seen my stuff or the shop who made it. Miami muffler has made plenty of M3 exhaust in South Florida so far all without issue. If you were as knowledgeable as your silly posts make it seem you are, then you would also know that yes, some x pipes with resonators at the rear do in fact have a splayed connection. (see gintani as it looks identical to mine).
I really don't need to qualify anything to you as again your posts prove how little you really know.

My x pipe was ran on my car, built on my car and fits perfect. No issues whatsoever. I also had Volks, Hartge exhaust, AA coilovers, etc, etc. Is all that junk too? It's time people get off the high horse and think outside the box. There's no rocket science to making an x pipe. If you were mechanically inclined at all maybe you would understand.

Good luck OP getting this sorted. If they don't warranty it, a local shop should be able to weld up the resonator and add a tab to brace both resonators together (that's what I would do). If you look around you'll see other x pipes also use a tab to brace the part where yours failed.

[s85e90]

Originally Posted by Patrón

you shit on m3 owners in every other post, your other posts are hijacking people's exhaust or xpipe threads with trying to sell your flea market part.

what's wrong with it? you tell me. it hasn't sold. quality parts at fair market prices sell on here pretty quick. perhaps it's the way your rear connection bows out like crazy. i've done a bit of research on xpipes and none of the manuf. bow out like that. good luck selling your hacked parts and keep up the condescending posts towards bmw and m3 owners.

Years ago yes, sadly that's not the case anymore. People here want cheap stuff. My Volks were mint and a good deal and sat here for months before selling.

[s85e90]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

Looks aren't everything, especially in places no one sees. And Dinan's championship race welder x-pipe apparently isn't worth double the price since it failed.

Lol, I just keep looking at that post an laughing. It may be my new sig quote. How many championships or racers has my welder participated in? WTF does that even mean?

Some of the best welders I know can weld circles around half of these mass produced parts and people would never know who they are/were.

One thing I have learned is that you never know someone's abilities. Not cool to shit on someone that you don't know.

[MFL]

Because welding is a new/emerging skill and shit.

Any fucking hillbilly can weld in a resonator. Hell, I've done it in my garage with a mig welder on my old E36 M3.

[///M Ryder]

I find it funny how this thread has taken a turn to non-sense. Certain people really took this opportunity to go in on Dinan and do a little self promoting. Here's what I'll say, everyone of us that drives this car runs the risk of the over stated rod bearing failure. So should we all say why pay upwards of 50 large for this over priced piece of shit BMW? Of course not because we're smart enough to know the brand is still solid. I'll just leave that here and hope that someone from Dinan chimes in on this thread..........Phil