Hi all. I'm new here so please excuse my noobness.

I have a 2010 2.2 LT and the stock muffler is showing a little age. To me, it really stands out like sore thumb when you look at the rear end.
I'd really like to replace it with something stainless steel. I'm not too concerned with doing anything too wild like a full new exhaust or a cat back since i'm still covered under warranty.
My question is if I replace the stock muffler, will it void the warranty? If not, what would you recommend I pick up? I'd like to do it as cheap as possible and still have it look pretty good. Anything stainless with a nice tip would be cool.

Thanks in advance!

 

I was thinking that the stock was stainless steel. Alot of folks just painted it black so as not to stand out as much.

 

I can't imagine it voiding the entire warranty, but might void anything related to the exhaust. I'm sure others will chime in on this to correct me if I'm wrong. If you do a bit of searching, there are a number of members that have painted the stock muffler with black high temp grill spray paint to "hide" it. Would definitely be cheap and will not mess with your warranty. Just a thought.

Welcome to the site!

 

Painted mine with high temp engine paint, but after about a month or so it started coming off, so I repainted it with caliper paint which is rated higher I believe so hopefully it'll hold. Looks much better painted IMO.

Here's a bad pic back when I had my lower bumper painted...it pretty much disappeared!

 

BBQ paint FTW!

 

Right on. Thanks! I'll give that some consideration. Any opinions on swapping it out for something nicer with a nice chrome tip? Is this a "ricer" type move that I want to avoid or should I hold out for a cat back or custom exhaust?

 

GMPP(GM Performance Parts), Borla, and Magnaflow all make cat back systems for the HHR. I have the GMPP and Borla systems on three out of four HHR's in my fleet/herd, no warranty invalidation's on either of the two that had/have warranties still in effect.

For the newest of the fleet I'm going to try the caliper paint and nice chrome tip route.

The stock muffler actually flows pretty well, so keeping it isn't a handicap, it just looks terribly "dorky".

 

Paint and a tip looks way better, or you could...........

 

I was wondering when you'd show off the Short Bus's butt Sam, should have known you'd couldn't resist.

 

Chrome tips aren't ricer as long as you stick with the basics and as for mufflers, you don't want to add any autozone/ebay tuner mufflers...