I guess I'm still lost though, sure I have proof of shipped exhaust parts, but where's the misconception? Is it solely the statement of "AWE manufactures everything in house" ? If it was "AWE Buys bended exhaust parts and supplies from China nd welds everything in house, would we not worry about this?"
I guess...why does it matter? False claims? Flase Advertising? If that's then case then I can understand.
It depends on how you look at it. There have been numerous reports of welds cracking on AWE exhausts (and 2.7t manifolds). Mysteriously, every time someone reports a cracked weld, Todd comes in chiming that it's the "first time he's ever heard of a cracked weld on an AWE product". If you're outside their 1 year warranty, you have to pay for a "refurbished" part (essentially a return from someone else who had a cracked part that was fixed) or you pay to ship it to them and have them fix the cracked weld.
A friend of mine has a full AWE TBE that has had 5+ different welds crack on it. At $75 a crack, it was hardly cheap for him to have it fixed every time. IIRC the welds started cracking sometime after 2 years of ownership in sunny california. My former AWE TBE also ended up cracking a year or so after I sold it to someone else. He too had issues getting AWE to fix it outside the 1 year warranty (unit was only 2 years old).
So, I'd say there's a particular concern about where AWE sources their prefabbed parts. It's also a bit disconcerting how they spin their shipment backorders as every exhaust being hand-made to order. I suppose the hand-made part does have some legitimacy, but the "to order" part is bogus. They're simply waiting for another container to come from overseas.
I do agree though that there are quality products that do come from overseas (i.e. the old Eurojet TIG-welded exhausts) No one's ever reported any issues with those and they were made from high quality components from Taiwan.
Dave
