whopper

A couple of weeks ago I had the front section of the exhaust replaced due to a break in the flex pipe area just ahead of the cat. That was a plug and play install, and all seemed ok until I drove on some very rough roads last weekend.

When I hit a number of rough potholes on a rough gravel road, I started hearing a lot of clanking and banging that I SWORE came front the front suspension. I was thinking initially that it might be a sway bar end link broken, or the sway bar had somehow pushed one of the bushings out of place - it really was some loud banging - but different than that of badly worn swaybar end links (which I replaced a few months ago).

After I did a walk around the car, and didn't see anything about to fall off the front suspension, I noticed the rear of the exhaust was way off-center in it's cut-out, and was pressing against the outside of the cut-out. It had always been slightly off-set from day one, but never this bad.

A quick use of the boot re-centered it, and a short drive showed that the noise had gone away, but would slowly reappear after a bit of rough road driving, and the exhaust tip was once again pressing against the cutout.

So down to the muffer shop and got the pipe just ahead of the rear muffler heated, and the pipe bent just a bit, enough to recenter the exhaust tip. Presto!!! Fixed.

Once again - I could have sworn that the noise came from the front, and not the rear. Just keep that in mind if you too encounter a noisy front end.