Hello everyone.

So a couple of weeks ago I noticed my car getting louder, especially at cold starts and what not. I'd taken my exhaust off before so I recognized it as an issue with the exhaust, I figured my V-Band clamp had come loose at the downpipe or something like that.

Got under the car to check it out and figured out the exhaust is leaking out of the flex pipe. The rest of the exhaust is tightened up and whatnot, but the leak out of the flex pipe is pretty extensive. There's no visible holes, but you can feel the exhaust coming out at that point, and barely any exhaust makes it through the system to the backbox. pulling the exhaust towards the downpipe and 'scrunching' the flex section stops the leaking, but that's obviously not a good fix .

I don't know if it's from bottoming the car out or just wear over time, but I wanted to see if anyone has had this issue, and if so, what steps they took. I'm trying to avoid having to buy an entire new exhaust just to replace that section...I've gotta do something about it soon though, the lack of back pressure is killing my car .

F.Y.I. the exhaust is the Invidia Q300, stock downpipe.

Thanks everyone!

 

Go to a welder and get a new flex pipe. They can probably salvage the mating flange to the downpipe so you're not screwed.

 

Okay, thanks a bunch! I'll go look around tomorrow. Do you know if this is a common problem or not? Do you think it came from bottoming out or just heat wear over time?

 

I don't have an Invidia but practically all the exhausts out there have an accordian-style flex section wrapped in steel wire mesh. These flex sections are typically plain steel even though the exhaust pipe might be stainless. You can tell if they rubbed since there will probably be scrape marks on the exhaust pipe itself. They usually fail from rust rotting them out and it's especially bad in the snow where salt is dumped everywhere. That is how my exhaust flex section originally started to leak. I went to my local exhaust guy and fixed it good as new.

 

Okay, thanks a ton for your help! Thought I was gonna have to buy a new exhaust for a little while there haha