Chrome plated exhaust pipes always look so nice in the showroom. For most truckers, it’s love at first sight.But once they’re installed on the truck and the engine is fired up, the blues start to set in.
When chromium oxidizes it turns blue, sometimes brown, sometimes yellow, sometimes all three. The discoloring is caused when the heated stack surface is exposed to the oxygen in the atmosphere. It can be accelerated as the chrome is corroded by road salts, water and other corrosive agents. The hotter the surface the faster the oxidation, and today’s trucks run hotter than ever.
