Berk HFC's blew up, now what?
 

Well on my morning commute to work my cats decided to go. Other than sounding like an old Honda the rest of my way I am disappointed in the quality of the product. I haven't owned them very long (> 1 month) and expected much more out of the $500 I paid for them. My state doesn't have many rules against not running cats other than checking to see if your CEL is on, so I'm thinking of just going with some test pipes. I'm just worried that I'm going to keep blowing through cats (and my wallet) and want to side step it, but maybe that is a bad idea?

Buy these brand new from Berk? Give them a call... You might ferns free replacement

Berks HFCS are guaranteed for a year, tell the company you bought them from you want your $$ back. ART pipes are your best option along with a tune...Gary

HFC unfortunately are hit and miss, regardless of how much you paid and who sold them. I've seen them fail after a couple thousand miles, and I also know guys who've had them for years and they're still in great condition.

If you bought them new absolutely go after Berk for a refund/ replacement, if they won't help you out I would even go so far as to suggest a chargeback on your card (assuming thats how you paid).

Test pipes and a tune, and you'll never have to worry about them failing again.

EDIT: I just saw from your sig that you're boosted, I can almost guarantee you that's your problem. FI & cats do not mix.. whoever tuned it should have told you this. If you replace them they will fail again, regardless of the brand.

My Berks fried and when I got in touch with them, they denied me replacements because I was running them on my Vortech supercharged G with UpRev tuning. They blamed me for having a rich tune which caused the failure of the cats. Oh, and they did all this without ever looking at the cats....which were completely blown out btw.

I've just left the empty cats in place.....they act like test pipes for the most part. We retuned the car on the dyno and it runs better than ever.

In talking to multiple shops like Z1 Motorsports, they suggest to use the OEM cats with FI as they flow nearly as well as any of the HFCs on the market and don't burn up.

I'm definitely going with test pipes instead. I'm not even going to bother talking to them about a replacement.

refund.

Do you think it would even be possible to get a refund? They DID work, for the time they were on. As the other guy said it seems they don't support / it isn't a good idea to run HFC on boost. I do blame my shop/tuner for this mistake, and I AM pissed about it.

I have berk hfc's as well. How exactly would it sound when they go? I'm getting a metallic rattling noise from my near the y pipe, so I figure it is either the gaskets or the cats.