Vance & Hines defects

I purchased a slip on exhaust for my Road King last summer when I purchased my bike and had the dealer install the exhaust. A few months ago, I noticed the chrome peeling from the billet tip that came with my pipes. Now the pipes have very little chrome left. The xxhaust still looks okay. Has anyone experienced this? I contacted customer service and have not had a reply. Does anyone have a solution? I thought about rechroming the pieces or perhaps powder coating the tips black as my Road King is black.

V&H Defects

I have never seen or heard of the problem you describe. I would talk to V&H and see if this is a problem they have had with others. Could have been a slip up in the prep work in the chroming process... but I'm no expert. V&H may replace them if this has been a common problem. If not, you could consider rechroming but personally I like the black tips on chrome pipes... like Rhinehart. Good luck.

Breeze

Thank you for your reply. I have contacted Vance and Hines on three occassions. They have not replied. I am afraid I will have to deal with this problem myself. I do think the powder coat black tip would look pretty good. If the powder coat could stand up to the heat generated from the exhaust.

Maybe I should have gone with the Rhinehart truse duals in the first place. I was compromising for the $$$$$$.

Thanks again.

V&H Defects

V&H is known for their customer service... I'm surprised that you haven't heard back. Maybe a dealer could intervene for you and get a response. CD may have some ideas on this. As for the powder coat and heat, I had the same thoughts. The stuff will soften up with enough heat. I have used powder coat in other applications and if I remember right we heated the metal to around 450 degrees to put the stuff on. I don't have a clue how hot the tips of exhaust pipes may be. If you have access to an infrared temp gun you could find out pretty quick.

How are you contacting V&H customer service? Have you called them?

Call V&H @ 800-223-5952 and ask for Bruce. Tell him that we asked you to call and talk to them. Have your purchase information ready to fax to him.

They have experienced some chrome issues on the tips over the years. Without being able to use some chemicals due to the EPA it is difficult to get chrome to stick to aluminum and some other materials. A lot of places now have their chroming done down south.

I had a similar problem with the end cap on my Pro Pipe. With a lowered softail any serious twisties riding involves scraping the pipes a bit, and after my first scrape on this cap the chrome started flaking off, starting at the location of the scrape, and working its way around until about a month later when there was no chrome left anywhere on the end cap.

The weird thing is that this isn't my first Pro Pipe end cap. I lost the first one on some mountain road somewhere (my fault--didn't tighten the bolts properly) but on the first one I wore a good half inch off the corner that ends up contacting the road with no effect on the surrounding chrome. So it looks like their chrome quality may be uneven, or has gotten worse over time.


You can see how there's an unchromed strip around the edge at the end of the pipe, but it doesn't affect looks overall too much. I never bothered to complain to V&H since the first bit of damage is self-inflicted, and since overseas shipping is such a pain anyway, so I have been living with it for a few years now.