Well folks it's already happened and it only took 2 weeks. I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong to buy the HKS knock-off exhaust. I bought it and installed it this past summer and everything seemed ok. Recently, we have been bombarded with freezing rain, snow and ice. It hasn't been a lot, but it was back-to-back hits that left me unable to clean my car after the city salted the roads. I'm not sure what they put on them this last time but it was some brown gravel looking stuff that really ate my exhaust up. Stuff seemed like battery acid. It even rusted my nismo lisence plate frame which is also only 7 months old. All this happened in a 2 week time period. Three weeks ago my exhaust didn't have any rust on it, now it looks like this....

I thought stainless steel and titanium don't rust?








Any ideas to take the rust off with something like CLR untill I purchase another one.

 

damn...i dont know what to tell ya...there should be products out there that take off rust...

 

Sucks that you had to learn the hard way. But the XO2 sucks and this is just one more reason. Next time get the real deal, HKS.

 

Damn that sucks, why dont you try and contact XO2????

 

^+1, try to contact the manufacturer, shouldn't there be some sort of warranty for this type of stuff?

 

XO2 is a sorry cheapy company...im still made they came into the market and people still buy there stuff....but sorry you learned the hard way man

 

I know I won't be able to receive a refund. I would just like to clean it up and have it last until I go turbo and get a larger exhaust without it being an eye soar. Have you guys ever heard of a stainless steel / titanium exhaust rusting like this with any rock salt? It was holding up real good until then. Correct me if I'm wrong, but stainless steel and titanium never rust right? So this exhaust is made from other metals I would assume.

 

What part of the xo2 exhaust is titanium?

As for stainless steel - yeh, it rusts. It "stains less," but is not actually stain-proof. Not to mention that there are different types and grades of stainless steel.

 

The tips are "supposedly" made of titanium.

 

The tips on the HKS exhaust are a titanium alloy.

The tips on the xo2 exhaust are stainless steel, unless xo2 made a change and replaced the old stainless steel tips with titanium alloy tips. But as far as I know, the xo2 tips are SUS 304 stainless steel, just like the rest of the exhaust.

 

Go to a gun shop and get some blue and rust remover. Birchwood casey makes it.

 

Maybe WD-40 and foil might work..haven't tried it on stainless steel but I know it works for chrome.

 

This is absolutely true, just because a kind of steel is "stainless" and not of a "mild" steel, does not mean that it is not prone to rusting, oxidation, etc. There are indeed many different quality grades of ss.

Also, salt is a killer on metals and finishes. I'm not even sure how titanium holds up to salt and cold, harsh conditions. I am in Chicago and we have gotten some pretty crappy weather and my G is like white with salt. I have a titan amuse exhaust, I'll let the board know how it holds up come Spring, but so far so good.

 

If I'm not mistaken, pure titanium should not rust or corrode. But you will rarely find pure titanium. Most things that you see advertised as titanium, such as the ARC strut bar and the HKS tips, are a titanium alloy.

 

I'm pretty sure the Amuse R1 exhaust is pure titanium, at least I hope it is; for $2600+. It's also very thin walled: