Morning all

Is the flexible section on a MKIII Estate exhaust repairable?
Mine's blowing 😫

Had a quick look under it yesterday before the local exhaust centre washed their hands of it, looks a lot like this;

Any exhaust is repairable with enough time & money...  Finding someone to weld that may be difficult though, and with the labour cost to remove, weld and replace it may work out just as cheap to have a used or aftermarket part fitted instead.  

I would go with a after market 🙁

Thanks, I've had some prices back regarding replacing the lot now, nobody locally would consider repair 🙁

aftermarket cats compared with OEM are dog poo. There's a good reason OEM fetch good scrap value and aftermarket are laughable to the scrap man

21 minutes ago, stef123 said:

aftermarket cats compared with OEM are dog poo. There's a good reason OEM fetch good scrap value and aftermarket are laughable to the scrap man

I agree, but unless he's planning on keeping the car for several more years the aftermarket one should pass MOT (just about lol) and be a lot cheaper.  

33 minutes ago, stef123 said:

aftermarket cats compared with OEM are dog poo. There's a good reason OEM fetch good scrap value and aftermarket are laughable to the scrap man

agree but its what you want to spend on it🙁

you can buy the flexi sections on ebay and weld them on or use exhaust clamps. Not checked that specific size is available. depends how much work you can do yourself.  eg. buy new flexi section, take exhaust off car, take exhaust and new part to an old-school type garage and ask them to weld new part on. wouldn't take them long when doing it off the car on a work bench.   In my experience they usually last longer than yours has. 

I’m not saying replace it with a brand spanking new oem part. 

If the exhaust is in good condition I’d go further afield to find someone who will do it. I’ve had many flexi sections replaced on good sound oem cats. One of which is still going strong, a now 12 year old exhaust repaired around 4 years ago. 

It's going in the local garage Thursday for appraisal. The local Ford service centre quoted £730/£1000 for aftermarket/OEM.

The idea is to keep the car for a while, so if the lifespan of OEM is significantly better, I'll go with that - the car's not cost much in the last year and just passed MOT with no work, so it's justifiable.