 | Home > Maintenance & Modifications > Choose your Intercooler carefully! |
 
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| Zinke Member Since: 27 Jan 2009 Location: Scunthorpe Posts: 670   
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This week i popped into see Gary at Alive Tuning to get my self a new intercooler for my TD5 which i have been meaning to do for a long time now. Just by coincidence when i got there they where swapping the intercooler on a nice white TD5 110 for one of Garys very well made ones. When i had a look at the old one i couldnt believe what i saw, it had cracked about 3 inches down one of the welds on the inlet side and blow its self apart. Also it was missing a lot of fins in the core which had rotten away. I had a word with the owner and it turns out it was only four years old and in those four years it had only covered a few thousand miles. I cant remember where the owner was from but he had come a long way to swap him broken AlliSport intercooler for one of Garys.
Ive seen a few AlliSport intercoolers on TD5's and they always looked ok to me but its not until you get one side by side with the Alive intercooler that you can see the difference in quality. The Alive one is just so much better finished which is what you pay that little extra for.  Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge Cant wait to get mine fitted now, hopefully have time tomorrow! As mine is very much a working Defender im hoping to see some improvement in economy when driven correctly as well as improvements in driveability. Time will tell! Pete. |
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5th Jan 2012 8:44pm |
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| Lorryman100 Member Since: 01 Oct 2010 Location: Here Posts: 2686 |
I will be going to Alive for my new intercooler as well
 Is it a Serck Marston, the one you got Zinke?
Brian. |
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5th Jan 2012 8:54pm |
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| bob neville Member Since: 30 Apr 2009 Location: Marbella Posts: 3248  
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Zinke
Can you report back once you have been driving with it for a while ? I am changing my Intercooler this year and the Alive ones are top of the list. Ta Bob |
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5th Jan 2012 9:05pm |
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| jst Member Since: 14 Jan 2008 Location: Taunton Posts: 8021  
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wow, thats looks bad.
was it mounted correctly? What did Andrew have to say about it? the fins look like external damage to me nothing to do with Manu. Cheers James 110 2012 XS Utility 130 2011 M57 bespoke Camper 90 2010 Hardtop 90 M57 1988 Hardtop |
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5th Jan 2012 9:15pm |
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| Zinke Member Since: 27 Jan 2009 Location: Scunthorpe Posts: 670
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Bob, yeah i will report back when i have been using it a while with how it feels and hopefully some fuel consumption figures too. Gary mapped my Defender for me in the early summer so i have a average MPG now for what my use is. The only thing im going to change is fitting the intercooler, so will be interesting what effect this has on the MPG.
JST, yes it was all mounted correctly. I must admit that the damage to the fins does look like something has hit it or something like that but when i had a closer look all the fins where corroded and breaking. Pete. |
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5th Jan 2012 11:23pm |
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| Zinke Member Since: 27 Jan 2009 Location: Scunthorpe Posts: 670
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Just thought i would add some more pics.
The first is the new Intercooler next to my old standard land rover one. You can see the difference is size is quite large and what you can't see is that it is about 20mm thicker too. Click image to enlarge And as you can see from here its a tight fit but it goes in there! Looks good too! 
Click image to enlarge Only been for a short drive since i fitted it but seems good so far. You can tell its there, it picks up a bit quicker. Not a scientific test but everything i drive i take to the same road and floor it from 30mph in 4th gear over a motorway fly over, its not very far and quite steep. In standard form my defender used to manage 52mph buy the top. After Gary re-mapped it, it did 60 mph by the top. So tonight i popped over to give it a go with my new intercooler fitted and got 65mph by the top, so there is a marked increase in performance. Pete. |
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6th Jan 2012 7:37pm |
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| AlliSport Andy Member Since: 10 Jul 2007 Location: Gloucestershire Posts: 11
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This post has been brought to my attention and I feel that I need to reply personally. I’d like to point out that for me to be writing on a forum means I feel very strongly about it!
AlliSport manufactures and sells over 2000 intercoolers per year (that’s just TD5 models) mostly to the trade and I am the first to admit we had a batch of between 20-30 around 4 years ago that suffered from splitting on a weld. (The failure was purely down to changing one of our processes and was quickly rectified) Two points here – One is that ALL of these coolers with splits were REPLACED FREE OF CHARGE as and when the problem arose, without any questions about installation issues or super high boost being used. I believe the intercooler in question here was part of that batch looking at the photos. All our coolers are tested to 3 bar and we offer a 10 year repair/replace promise. Second point is that we have never been contacted regarding this problem! Surely if you had paid £400+ for an a product and it had an issue, you would give the supplier a chance to deal with it? After our “glitch” batch we have suffered possibly a 1% failure rate. All manufacturers suffer a degree of failure, just look at Land rover themselves! You will notice that I repeatedly say manufactured, this is because we actually make everything we sell; it is designed, manufactured and tested from conception to realisation in-house. There are very few other companies who can honestly say this. My main point regarding this is that in the 11 years we have been in business, we have repaired and replaced intercoolers, maps and exhausts fitted to cars from every other company/competitor of ours, and I mean EVERY one. We do not make a big fuss about it, we just concentrate on learning from ours and other peoples mistakes and design flaws, thus improving our own products to make them as good as possible and hopefully the best on the market. I can safely say that last year alone, we have repaired split intercoolers sold by every competitor but I am not one to be specific……. Bear in mind the many well-known and respected companies that are happy to trust and to sell our products, many of whom sell non-branded AlliSport intercoolers and other products as their own and you never know. 60% of our market is export and trade. I see James from 4x4 Adventures asked the question – what did Andrew say about this? Well, I haven’t had the chance to say much about it directly to the customer as I have not been contacted, but given the opportunity, I would offer the same response as always – we will offer a free of charge collection, repair or replacement. |
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9th Jan 2012 3:28pm |
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| tolley Member Since: 07 Nov 2011 Location: gloucester Posts: 1115 
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Just to had my 2p worth i've had my 300 defender ,disco both done and was VERY pleased with the results and will have my td5 done soon (when i save up and with out the mrs knowing
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for me this is not the place in a open forum for this sort of discussion ,just my way of thinking. ATB to all |
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9th Jan 2012 4:17pm |
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| Killer90 Site Sponsor Member Since: 09 Oct 2011 Location: Hertfordshire Posts: 6478 
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on a better note, cheers for the bits Andy they are superb quality
Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge |
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9th Jan 2012 5:51pm |
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| Porny Site Sponsor Member Since: 31 Aug 2009 Location: Sutton Coldfield - West Midlands Posts: 809
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Nobody is perfect...
I have had two vehicles - one Td5 Defender and one Td5 Discovery both fitted with Serck intercoolers that had split in a very similar way. Both intercoolers had come from/been fitted by JE Engineering who also use Serck. I have also had one of mine split... but changed the design very soon after. Sometimes you can only improve a design/process when something goes wrong or you have a failure. Ian |
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9th Jan 2012 9:42pm |
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| Dave-H Member Since: 08 Feb 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 1507  
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Well said 
Is it just me noticing a trend on here lately of people slagging other makers products ....  Guns and Landrovers .... anything else is irrelevant. |
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9th Jan 2012 9:53pm |
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| Alive Tuning Member Since: 01 Mar 2010 Location: Louth Posts: 609 
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I've used AlliSport Intercoolers for many years, and always had a good relationship with Andy. The only reason I stopped using AlliSport, was to help build on my own rapidly growing brand, and is a decision which I know Andy respected.
Like everyone else, our Intercoolers have undergone constant development, to help improve their efficiency, and reliability. |
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9th Jan 2012 10:12pm |
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| Killer90 Site Sponsor Member Since: 09 Oct 2011 Location: Hertfordshire Posts: 6478
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everyone digs at each other you notice it at shows massively, they dont do favours for themselves though dave because it makes you feel as if you cant trust them at all, i prefer someone who tells me the truth about there product not one who says well it is better than there one etc, 99% of the time you can figure it out for yourself anyways, and you know which company you can go with
, for example an egr blanking kit twisted gave me all the  about how there one is this this and this were all there one was was triple the price of everyone elses  were as allisport who i brought it from in the end was upfront with me told me what it would do at a reasonable show price. at then end of the day its a piece of metal blocking the from entering it could be made of gold and it would do exactly the same job  |
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9th Jan 2012 10:12pm |
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| Sonic3d Member Since: 28 Jan 2008 Location: Ross on Wye Posts: 1505 
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I have used nothing but AlliSport Intercoolers on TD5s Pumas and D3s along with long range fuel tanks and have never had any problems what so ever and the quality of welding is second to none
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9th Jan 2012 10:35pm |
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