** Do Not buy JHM Cat pipes ** Unless you like throwing your money away

[madman4you]

OK, as the title states.

I am extremely Pi##ed off at the situation at hand. I took my car in to get the cats replaced with a set of JHM high flow cat pipes.

With a little bit of back and forth on shipping delay after paying for faster shipping, I finally got the pipes shipped out. Not a big deal... it's not out of the ordinary to have a delay with a companies shipping. However, a little side note to this is; I actually called to ask a question about the cats pipes and was assured they were in house ready to ship. However there was still a delay... apparently the original delay was because the fabricators needed to do a S6 fabrication instead of ship out my parts that were supposibly ready to ship??

Fast forward after paying an additional amount to have it expedited, the cats arrived and I was provided with a courtesy T-shirt for my delay. (Which came in the wrong size). Moving on.
The cat pipes looks good, and I was pretty excited to get them put in. I warmed up to the fact that the book time on these cat pipe replacements are 10.5-11hrs (plus / minus).
This is due to the fact that they need to drop the transmission in order to get at the cats.

Fast-forward a couple days later and the service manager ask me to come into the shop. This was not good, as they usually just call and tell me the car was ready for pick up. Once I arrived to the shop, the shop owner said "I got good news and bad news" "Good news is everything is put together and car sounds good, Bad news is when I took it for a ride I got a code for the 02 sensor"

He thought maybe the wire was sitting on the exhaust pipe or something. Turns out, that once he lowered the car, the location to which JHM had put the 02 bung on the passenger side was sitting up at 12 o'clock and once the car is under load, the 02 sensor hits the firewall. The mechanic said, you couldn't really see this issue when it was up on the hoist, it wasnt until he actually drove it that he noticed it. He said you cannot drive like this. We had to call JHM to ask for a solution or ask them to send another one.

Here's the first red flag. When I call up to explain there is an issue with the cat pipes. The employee on the phone said "Let me guess, B8 S4?" So this is not new. He then went on to say that he has had a few calls before and people would just "make it work". WTF! So, you have to buy their cat pipes for around $900 and then when they arrive, they wont fit correctly, so just make it work.

I went back and forth with the guy on the phone and sent photos of how tight it was to the floor/ firewall. After a full day of delays and no solid answer. The employee on the phone said this was the worst one they have seen. (See pic below)



This is what it looks like with the car sitting on the ground. imagine under load??



After multiple calls and no solid answers, besides "It has been sent to my manager and the fabricators for investigation". This happen to land on a Friday, So I had to wait the weekend out, while my car sits in the shop. Because only one guy was working at JHM on the weekend and he didn't know what was going on.

Monday comes and nothing, Finally Tuesday I get a response: They wanted me to take the faulty passenger side cat pipe off the car, ship it back to them so they could modify it, and ship it back to me. LOL.

They wanted me to have the car sitting on a hoist for however many days while they corrected the issue. I asked to speak with the manager multiple times, to which I was denied. apparently the manager does not speak to customers ??

I said at the very least, you should correct the fabrication on a new pipe and send me a new one, and when it arrives, I will swap it out the faulty one and send that back to you. After a bunch of back an forth they agreed to this. Here is the exact response and their way of trying to soften the blow of me paying for the labor TWICE.

"Hello Glen,

After speaking with the JHM Management team about the passenger side cat pipe you received we have come to an agreement we will be sending you a shipping label to get our cat pipe back and we will be sending you a brand new one with us covering that shipping as well. You will need to cover the core charge (which will be given back) for the passenger side cat pipe and you will be receiving a $150.00 store credit to use with your next purchase."

So they are providing me with a store credit of $150 to cover the 10+hrs I need to pay again for their mistake. I am so frustrated at this point and just want my car back. I agree to pay the core and have them ship out a new cat pipe. My mechanic explained exactly where they should have placed the bung in order to have no issues. So I drew a diagram for them, so they would do it correctly.



They shipped out the new one, and here is how it arrived.











They just filled in the hole and moved it back. I clearly show that they need to rotate it towards the driver side appox. 10 degrees. I was not optimistic about this new pipe. I sent JHM and email, and still have not received an email back after a full week. We moved forward anyways as the car has been sitting at their shop for weeks now.

My mechanic had the car up, removed the tranny, went to put the new one in, and realized this new location was worst than the previous one. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

He called and told me that he would just put a plug in the first one they sent and install a new bung in the location we described to JHM.

So I paid twice for the install and my mechanic still ended up fabricating his own fix. He said it is not worth me waiting for them to get it right.

Please use my story as a example. If you were thinking of purchasing JHM Cat pipes. I would think twice, and skip it.

Unless you like tossing away money. I have wasted too much of my time and money on trying to get this right. The fact that the manager does not speak to customers says something about them.


**I apologize for the poor grammar as I am typing this with steam coming out of my head.**



Situation corrected. See post #150

[whiped]

Wow, that's some bullshit.

Thank you for the heads up.

[Loe]

Understandable. You went through a lot! I was about to purchase these cats too until you sent me a text. Thanks again for the heads up.

[will13k7]

That's pretty shitty.

There's always two sides to the story. JHM, is this true? That is unacceptable if so. How will you make this right if this is true? I think you own him labor costs at least.

[j1n]

Looks like they set you up for failure. they knew of the situation with the b8 prior to selling you the cats. that's beyond fucked up.

[TappaNuKegga]

Well your username sure checks out... Kidding sorry, I'm sure you're not in a joking mood.

This goes down as one of the worst horror stories about an otherwise reputable tuner company I have ever heard.

Unless JHM steps up and makes this right(pretty hard to do at this point) I'll be avoiding them and recommending my buddies do the same. Poor logistics and bad customer service aside, their product design and even emergency redesign is evidently terrible.

Thanks for sharing your experience, I'll stick with Eurocode.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[derek.kritz]

Wow. Not good. My buddy just had a set installed on his S4 and my buddy put them in. And he said that the passanger side o2 bung could have been placed in a better location. But I don't think that it was that extreme. Not to put a bandaid on there f*** up but this would be a great option. Angled o2 spacer.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dirt]

That's pretty shitty.

There's always two sides to the story. JHM, is this true? That is unacceptable if so. How will you make this right if this is true? I think you own him labor costs at least.

At a minimum.

.

[mgaman]

Damn man, that sucks. Hope this gets worked out better than it has been so far.

[Bruno_s4]

That's unreal.
JHM obviously is still clinging on to the B7 S4 platform and in this case shit the bed on a simple product that they obviously failed to R&D before putting it for sale.

[cspcrx]

Bad Form JHM!

[mrmomo313]

Dang that is not cool at all. I really hope JHM makes right on this for you

[Thurston]

What's with all the failing cats lately? Just curious at what mileage did your oem's fail?

[bhvrdr]

I'll be honest I am a little surprised people are putting in high flow cats who are running higher than stock boost. Generally high flow cats are not usually as durable as even OEM cats and when you up the boost I would be surprised if they last all that long... even uber expensive HJS style units.

mike

[j1n]

What's with all the failing cats lately? Just curious at what mileage did your oem's fail?

Are they really failing? there is a ECM recall on our cars.

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...all-2016-09-21

"On Audi vehicles with 3.0L TFSI engine manufactured within a specific period, the diagnostic thresholds for the catalytic converters were programmed too tightly in the engine control unit. As a result, the engine warning lamp may light up even though the catalytic converters are working properly."

[theswoleguy]

Wow. Not good. My buddy just had a set installed on his S4 and my buddy put them in. And he said that the passanger side o2 bung could have been placed in a better location. But I don't think that it was that extreme. Not to put a bandaid on there f*** up but this would be a great option. Angled o2 spacer.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

this is exactly what i was thinking of. It appears to be post cat which means one of these could solve the issue but you cant install it as you cant get the OxS out of the car. JHM should either mod the cats going fwd or supply these with the kit (judging by the room in there best option would be these). OP should not be on the hook for double labor though.

[jdmnomore]

Wow thats crappy cant imagine the frustration you experienced. I always swear by JHM but here it would be nice to see them step up and make this right if they plan on selling any more DPs for this platform.

[Thurston]

Are they really failing? there is a ECM recall on our cars.

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...all-2016-09-21

"On Audi vehicles with 3.0L TFSI engine manufactured within a specific period, the diagnostic thresholds for the catalytic converters were programmed too tightly in the engine control unit. As a result, the engine warning lamp may light up even though the catalytic converters are working properly."

Haha holy sh*t the plot thickens

[Quidproquo]

I'll be honest I am a little surprised people are putting in high flow cats who are running higher than stock boost. Generally high flow cats are not usually as durable as even OEM cats and when you up the boost I would be surprised if they last all that long... even uber expensive HJS style units.

mike

This ^

I installed HFC on my 350Z, and when I took it to a Z shop a few years later to get a quote for a SC install, they said "you're going to have to lose the HFCs if you want boost, still have the OEMs?"
Apparently, the heat increase is no good on metallic HFCs. Then I read on the Z forums that boosted car's HFCs were failing after 10k - 15k miles.

[Lensch09]

Call Jake @ JHM. Dru is in Cancun.

-DL

[jprice]

I'd just put the stock ones back in, send JHMs stuff back, and demand a full refund + cost of labor you threw away.

Next time if you're going through the trouble, no cats.

[jl87]

Are they really failing? there is a ECM recall on our cars.

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...all-2016-09-21

"On Audi vehicles with 3.0L TFSI engine manufactured within a specific period, the diagnostic thresholds for the catalytic converters were programmed too tightly in the engine control unit. As a result, the engine warning lamp may light up even though the catalytic converters are working properly."

Or are they failing too often and now Audi is opening up the the thresholds because it's costing them $$$ and they can fix it with software....(sound familiar?)

[LA_S4]

Not going to buy from JHM if they're treating their customers this way

[doug97gxe]

This ^

I installed HFC on my 350Z, and when I took it to a Z shop a few years later to get a quote for a SC install, they said "you're going to have to lose the HFCs if you want boost, still have the OEMs?"
Apparently, the heat increase is no good on metallic HFCs. Then I read on the Z forums that boosted car's HFCs were failing after 10k - 15k miles.

I ran test pipes on my 350z

[bhvrdr]

I'd just put the stock ones back in, send JHMs stuff back, and demand a full refund + cost of labor you threw away.

Next time if you're going through the trouble, no cats.

I would do similar. I would hollow out the OEM cats if they have failed (ala "piggie pipes" on the B5 S4) and if the gasoline smell bothers you a lot i'd then weld in some inexpensive HFC that have a warranty under the car further downstream to save on labor install cost and to hopefully make them last a bit longer.

Mike

[j1n]

Or are they failing too often and now Audi is opening up the the thresholds because it's costing them $$$ and they can fix it with software....(sound familiar?)

I am not aware.... Dieselgate?

[jl87]

I am not aware.... Dieselgate?

Yep, that's the one. Not saying the thresholds weren't programmed too tightly, just coincidental there's now a TSB in place to change these parameters to eliminate a CEL identifying failed cats since cats + labor would be fairly costly.

[bhvrdr]

Yep, that's the one. Not saying the thresholds weren't programmed too tightly, just coincidental there's now a TSB in place to change these parameters to eliminate a CEL identifying failed cats since cats + labor would be fairly costly.

Most people are not going out and replacing cats because of a cat inefficiency code. Thats what the TSB is about. People are replacing cats because of misfires and poor performance and then confirming physically there is a bad cat.

mike

[RWD2quattro]

IMO, send that shit back and ask for full refund. Talk about poor service...
Once you build your funds back up, buy a set of HJS 200 cell or GESI HFC's and modify a set of non catted DP's and fit HFC's with O2 bungs. Any good shop can modify/weld these in a few hours.
All of my previous projects I've installed HJS and have never had an issue. I bought a set of HJS that I will install downstream of headers soon @ 034.

[madman4you]

Hey guys,

Appreciate the feedback and echoing my frustration. They sent me an email back today telling me they are sorry and that some of our cars are produced differently etc etc. Basically just blowing smoke. They then asked me to get more pics of the most recent cat they sent and how it hits the firewall. Basically wanting me to help them with their R&D which should have been a little further along.

I sent them a sketch over top the image and explained in a email exactly where there was a ton of room to work with. The fact that they completely disregarded this, shows they did not even read through my email with care.

In response to some guys telling me to take it off and send it back. My mechanic just plug their hole and installed a new bung in the correct location it should have been. He couldn't believe that they would send something back the way they did, as the firewall continues to fall in the direction they moved it to.

So all said an done I got the car back, I can tell there is a little difference in the exhaust note. Not sure I love it. Just happy to have my car back, as I run a small design business and I had to use my wifes car and a rental over the past 3 weeks.

I am now stuck with a $1800 bill, to which $800 of it could have been saved if I did not have the shop drop the tranny again, and modify their product. As is stands. I received a $150 credit towards this extra expense.

The best part is, the guy I spoke with on the phone. I outright asked if he himself would accept this outcome as fair if it were in my seat. And he said "No". So I said, "Why should I accept it?" He gave me a runaround answer and then tried to explain to me that I am also getting free shipping for the replacing part. LOL. I don't think he understood that I had already paid for expedite shipping in the first place for what I thought was a quality product.

SMH. I also thought going with a company like JHM would be a safe bet. However, not being able to speak directly with the manager rubs me the wrong way. As a business owner myself, I am fully aware that you cannot please every customer, however I will certainly do my best to speak with them and try and work something reasonable out.


Looking back, I should have just bit the bullet and purchased OEM.

[fitzydude]

As a JHM fan boy I plan on boycotting Jhm until this is fully resolved. What fucking bullshit.

[cspcrx]

I was considering their cats, now.... NOT!

[mdeneso]

Wow I can't believe they would treat their customers in this manner. I will definitely not be purchasing anything from JHM if they think this is acceptable.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[abamfo]

Unfortunately for JHM, I can completely back up what madman4you said. I in fact wrote about the o2 sensor bung misalignment a couple of week ago in the JHM hi-flow cat thread. See the picture below.



My shop called me to say that these are not fit for RHD vehicles and that the o2 sensor needs to be moved, I said do what you need to do and they fixed it by plugging the old hole and moving it sideways, plus putting in a dimple for the RHD steering column. Cost me around $1,300 including installation, which is an absolute rort but at least it was done in one session. Shop said that the o2 bung misalignment makes this 100% unquestionably impossible to install with "extensions and wobble joints" in 6-7 hours as JHM states it can.

I have bought a lot of things from JHM, including hi-flow cats for both the V8 and 3.0 SC, intake spacers for V8, CAIs, FI exhaust for 3.0 SC (THE DRONE MONSTER GATHERING DUST IN MY GARAGE), plugs, etc. and one thing I have noticed is that you need to be aware that JHM do not run testing prior to releasing a product on every product they release, compared to say someone like APR. I think you need to have buyer beware with shopping from JHM but they offer HQ products which others don't tackle at affordable prices. As an example, JHM had not tried out the latest HFCs on a 3.0 TFSI prior to their release. Jake said regarding the catalyst material a few weeks ago "We had to switch manufactures due to supply issues. We had tested the new cats on our S5 for a while with our supercharger kit before making the switch on the public end...Yes. The original supplier we were using for for our HFCs can't get them to us as quickly as we would prefer. So we switched to a different high quality cat manufacturer that could. No, our JHM 4.2L S5 with the supercharger kit we produce". So the latest version were never tested on a 3.0 TFSI prior to release, just the 4.2L supercharger kit. If anyone deserves some store credit it is me, I have about $3k of JHM products gathering dust in my garage!

Also the cats in these have changed multiple times and the latest version (which I believe I have) is made of ceramic material (not metallic) and doesn't require an o2 sensor spacer, well mine doesn't anyway and I don't throw any codes. I'll provide more information in post below to Mike.

[LINDW4LL]

Unreal.

[abamfo]

I'll be honest I am a little surprised people are putting in high flow cats who are running higher than stock boost. Generally high flow cats are not usually as durable as even OEM cats and when you up the boost I would be surprised if they last all that long... even uber expensive HJS style units.

mike

Mike, can you elaborate on this a little?? If they are good quality HFCs, surely they should be ok. What exactly is it that is the issue with HFCs; do they run hotter, clog under rich fuel conditions?? If it's simply an issue of extra heat from the boost, JHM have been using these on their 4.2L supercharger kit prior to their release. The reason I ask is that I believe, as has been discussed with you in another thread, that my car EGT and cat temperatures are very high and I wonder if this has anything to do with my JHM HFCs or from running a larger crank and dual pulley.

Also find below pictures of the stock cats, older jhm HFCs and the latest jhm HFCs. The additional sound increase (very raspy now) is quite large with the Corsa RSC exhaust but I do not require any manipulative change to the o2 sensors, which is different to the OP. It looks like they used to be metallic but are now ceramic but I'm not an expert.

[4RingRook]

Yikes. That is horrible.

[def]

Wow this info is good to know. I installed an HFC on my B7 A4 and it give it that little extra exhaust note it needed. Was going to pick these up with the same thing in mind. Guess never mind now. Thanks for the heads up.

[brainpan]

To add to this mess my jhm high flow cats melted in less than a month. No way of proving if it was a build quality issue or my car. My shop said it was impossible to point any fingures but think it was a tune and quality issue. I keep this info to myself because of lack of proof, but it seems guys are having issues with fitment and I'd share my experiences. If I was to do it again I would get test pipes and just skip the hfc.

I used a j bung spacer with the cats and really helped with clearance issues.

[bhvrdr]

Mike, can you elaborate on this a little?? If they are good quality HFCs, surely they should be ok. What exactly is it that is the issue with HFCs; do they run hotter, clog under rich fuel conditions?? If it's simply an issue of extra heat from the boost, JHM have been using these on their 4.2L supercharger kit prior to their release. The reason I ask is that I believe, as has been discussed with you in another thread, that my car EGT and cat temperatures are very high and I wonder if this has anything to do with my JHM HFCs or from running a larger crank and dual pulley.

Also find below pictures of the stock cats, older jhm HFCs and the latest jhm HFCs. The additional sound increase (very raspy now) is quite large with the Corsa RSC exhaust but I do not require any manipulative change to the o2 sensors, which is different to the OP. It looks like they used to be metallic but are now ceramic but I'm not an expert.

To add to this mess my jhm high flow cats melted in less than a month. No way of proving if it was a build quality issue or my car. My shop said it was impossible to point any fingures but think it was a tune and quality issue. I keep this info to myself because of lack of proof, but it seems guys are having issues with fitment and I'd share my experiences. If I was to do it again I would get test pipes and just skip the hfc.

I used a j bung spacer with the cats and really helped with clearance issues.

I'm going to talk in just general terms and not about JHM products specifically because I have no direct experience with either version of their HFC.


But in general terms, cats are known failure points on boosted cars whether they be OEM or High Flow Cats. Now, it is extremely expensive and difficult to make super high quality high flow cats. Look at how expensive OEM cats are and they are made in bulk... huge numbers.


What I am saying is that if you look at pretty much every aftermarket tuner company on any car platform and their history on selling high flow cats you will almost always hear, "We changed manufacturers..." several times. You will almost always hear of failures. This is pretty much a given. Some super high quality units may fail less often.


The point I am making is that if I am a tuner and I sell you a full turbo kit for your car that comes with a high flow cat and then 2 months later you call me and say your Garrett BB turbo blew, I'm going to be somewhat shocked and then start wondering what the heck could have caused it... did the customer turn up the boost over 30psi on his own? Did the turbo get oil starved? Was there a boost leak that caused it to overspin? Etc, etc. Now if a customer calls me up 2 months later and tells me their HFC blew, i'm not even going to bother wondering what caused it to fail. They fail. I'll just send them out a new one if its under warranty. Actually this used to happen quite often with the APR stage 3 kits on the A4s for those who are old enough to remember ;)


To add to this, the OEM cats are getting more and more efficient. At some point around 10 years ago I believe Audi went from using 700cpsi flowing cats to 400cpsi flowing cats in some applications (the lower the number the higher the flow). This is likely due to advancements in engineering as well as manufactures desires to get better and better fuel economy thus focusing on improving engine efficiency/reducing backpressure.


The point is that you are now getting less and less of a performance improvement going to a high flow cat. SOME very high quality high flow cats are truly a 200cpsi or even 100cpsi substrate. These high quality units like those from HJS are usually metal spiral core units with precious metals. They are expensive... $500 to $700 for just the cat core... that doesnt include the piping you need to make to put them in if you are selling them as a complete downpipe to a customer. So figure if you are a tuner and use one of these uber expensive cores you are going to be charging a minimum of a couple grand to you customer for a pair of cats. The porsche crowd is used to this.

But what if you know your customer base is not going to support that kind of price point? Well then you go with either a lower quality metal cat that will fail or you go with a ceramic cat that may not flow any better than OEM... in fact you better hope your customers dont put the car on the dyno because it may flow worse than OEM.


Bottom line is that its not a big deal if you sell high flow cats and 1 in 20 or so fail when your customers generally know this is not uncommon. It is a big deal though if it is costing your customers 11 hours in labor to replace them. For the Audi crowd it used to take under an hour to replace the cats on the B6/B7/B8 A4 so its not a big deal. For our B8 S4, again, i'd probably just recommend hollowing out the failed cat and then installing a HFC core under the car further downstream. Keep in mind our factory cats are pretty close to the exhaust ports of the car so they are getting extreme heat. Moving them down may make them less efficient but they will likely last longer and undoubtedly make them 10 times cheaper to replace.

Mike