Help: shops want $150 for y-pipe install, wtf?
 

I'm ready to install my y-pipe on my 99 SE with approx. 75k miles. Went to a few exhaust places by my house and here are the results:

1) Midas: First off they weren't happy seeing that the y-pipe eliminates the precats. They said it's illegal and that they can't do it. Then, they changed their story and said they'll do it, but charge me $90 for one hour labor. All was good until they raised my car. They again changed their story and starting saying something about how hard it is to take off the studs (6 of them supposedly?) and how the cat bolts are now part of the cat. Now they say it's at least a 2 hour job and I'm looking at $200 to start, most likely $200+. And I'm thinking, screw yoU!!! WTF? :jeffy: I pay $200 for pipe and 200+ to install the fukcer??!!

Place 2: $165 right off the bet. I just got the quote. So the way things are going, it would go up to $300+ once they jack my car up.

Place 3: "We cannot [put on this y-pipe] because it's illegal". :yeahright

Are you sh!!ting me?! I want to get my f**king y-pipe installed and I must go overseas to do it?! Am I missing something? Please excuse my language, but I took some time off work to get this done and I'm pissed off as you can see. I don't fu**ing get it :wtf:

Please recommend a place where I can get this done relatively cheap. Thanks

3 words for you.........DO IT YOURSELF!!! honestly, if you can, just get it done yourself. too bad you dont live where i am, i can probably hook you up at this one shop for about $40 dollars to install it. Good luck finding the right place.
Go to a hole in the wall place.

go find your neighborhood custom shop and ask them to do it i got mine done with race pipe for 50 bucks then a week later i paid 475 for HIDS lol so it evens out

I don't know about a 99, but for my 95SE it only took 1.25 hours at a place that doesn't specialize in exhaust work (not a Midas or anything like that). So if you take it to someone who knows what they are doing it shouldn't take much more than 1.0 hour or they're blowing smoke up your a$$.

Take it to an independent shop, not one of those franchises. It's not rocket science, but its much easier to do the work on a hoist with all the proper air tools, etc.

y dont u just do it urself or wit a fren.. i did mine at a fren's driveway but unfortunately it started raining but that didnt stop us so we were workin in the rain.. but it's all worth it!! oh and david, if u reading this i still owe u a lunch!!

Do it with a smart friend, mine let his ypipe hit me in the head :(

Do it yourself it'll be soooooo much cheaper then paying someone to do it.

I cannot do it myself. I don't have the tools. I don't have long enough wrenches, etc. On top of that, I don't have anything hot enough to loosen the bolts that hold the stock y-pipe to the cat. These bolts are too rusted and don't even look like bolts anymore. Taking these bolts off will probably require drilling as it looks. Shops have these tools handy.

Other options
 

What you guys (from the south) dont realize is he is in Chicago and the salt and rust and corrosion make the job nearly impossible to do jus by jacking up the car. When I was there even the muffler shop had to apply heat to get them bolts loose

Post in the Upper midwest forums, when I was in Chicago I had the same problem. I ended up going to a muffler shop on the west side (Cicero and Division) they put on control arm bushings and installed Y pipe for $150.00.

take it to any mufler shop , tell them to replace the bolts on your cat[U] , it will cost you $5-10 , Than go to Sears and spend few $$$ for some tools and install that sucker yourself !!!!


Nick.

just walk away from the shops. . .

follow the advice of the people on here, if anything I'm sure you can find someone in your area who would be willing to help you install it.

[QUOTE=nick]take it to any mufler shop , tell them to replace the bolts on your cat[U] , it will cost you $5-10 , Than go to Sears and spend few $$$ for some tools and install that sucker yourself !!!!QUOTE]

:sprint: My car was in NY all of its life except the past 2 years, those cat bolts were not going anywhere. I took it to a local exhaust shop and they popped those suckers out in 20 min for $15. The rest of the bolts were cake to get off. The only tools you will need are some socket extensions, a universal joint, a breaker bar, and a 7/8" open end wrench for the O2 sensors.

yes i remember that the day i started to jack my car up - the guy i bought it from lived in CT for several years and sure enough when I got under the car i knew it was gonna take awhile. Unistalling the stock pipe took about 5 hours bc of all that rust. i used about half a can of WD-40 and then my friend ended up cutting the bolts off at the cat w/ a dremel tool. Royal PIA. But this is something you have to do yourself. If you dont have the tools you need to go buy them - anyone who owns a car should own basic tools IMO. All you really need is a socket set and maybe some adjustable wrenches. I think youd be crazy to pay someone to do this.

i paid 30 dollars to get mine installed.... damn. i guess i got lucky or something.

One has to be either a masochist or a martyr to subject themselves to 5 or more hours of torture and recommend that all others do the same, LMFAO!

Pay someone to do the job and work on your mechanical expertise at your leisure and buy the tools when you have the time and money.

i paid 40 bux to get mine installed and it took half an hour.

Maybe I just enjoy doing things myself and dont mind working at things - it brings satisfaction to not take the easy way out sometimes. Not everyone has an extra 150 to pay someone else to do something you could do yourself just cause youre lazy.

Armani - did you end up going with the Superflo?

yes.

Also, I visited a few more exhaust places. God damn it. The cheapest one wants $100 even.

Question: What bolts/screws did you guys use to tighten the new y-pipe? I assume you didn't reuse the old, rusty screws - because I sure as hell can't. I don't even know what screws to get.

I actually re used the bolts that were stock on the car. I guess from the location of the bolts, they weren't as corroded as the bolts down at the stock. They were 14mm bolts, and I ended up re using all of them. I had the same problem with the corrosion, but I ended up replacing everything from the Y pipe back, so I got new nuts and bolts for the install. I would definitely look into tools as an investment. Just think about the number of tools you can buy with that 200 bucks that Midas wanted, and you will be able to use those tools for a lifetime. It's money well spent.

have the muffler shop install new cat bolts for few $$$,
There is lot of muffler shops in Spanish parts of Chicago that will install your y-pipe for pretty good price.

Nick.

well the only screws i had to replace were the ones we sawed off at the cat. we cut them off and then drilled the hole out in the flange, then went to home depot and just found ones that would fit the hole and put a nut and washer on each end to tighten them up. assuming you can get the rest off - which i think will be easier than the ones at the cat bc they are less exposed to salt and grime from the street you should be set. these are the ones that connect the ypipe to the headers and the bolts just hang in place from the the headers so save your nuts when you screw them off cause youll use them again.

:sprint: good thinkin

i have to agree with you, I wont ever take my car to anyshop to do anything because they are a rip off. I went out and bought an air compressor, air gun, air ratchett and everything just to change my axles and suspension myself...it prob would have cost as much for those tools as labor somewhere else, and now I"ll have them forever. You get a greater appreciation out of installing it urself IMO. Plus if the shop F's up, you dont have a hastle of running there and back trying to get them to fix it.

u need to go to a place that is in the inner city if u want cheap installs. if your car is like mine then u need to just bite the bullet and buy a hi-flo cat and not worry anymore about the rusted catr bolts. i did mine but some people cant and thats cool, just dont pay more then 50bucks to have it installed

Just go to a welder. They will probably do the whole thing for 30 bucks. It's a piece of cake for them

first time i had stone racing y-pipe i got it installed for 35 bucks then i took that pipe out and bought the warpspeed me and kevlo911 fixed it by our self. its not that hard

I think Dave SZ does work out of his garage. He's someplace around chicago. Try PMing him.

good idea terran. Thanks

I just pm'd him.

Ask Dave or there's an exhaust shop near him that'll do it

I got lucky and my mom's car also needed to get exhaust work done so the shop I went to did her's for $160 (b-pipe + muff for her Civic) and he did mine for $75 (welded my 5th gen muff, replaced all 4 cat studs, and loosened all of the y-pipe bolts :p)

CarX wanted $10 to replace each cat bolt + $60 to weld muff - didn't ask about y-pipe. Midas didn't even want to touch the car unless I wanted to replace my b-pipe with theirs. Didn't get to the shop that Dave told me about for a quote since the one I went to was an excellent deal :D

1. find a friend who is a car freak and has many tools. i sure as hell do.
2. either cut the bolts on the cat, or attempt to kinda fry it w/ a blow torch.
friend of mines dad came by w/ a blow torch cause he's a welder and said that the
bolts are somehow resistant to the heat from the blow torch but he was able to
blow it off luckily.
3. u can go to ur local custom shop and have them just remove the old bolts for u and install some new ones.

ha, dude, you cant install a y pipe on your own? i didnt need any special tools, if so, you spend like what, 20-30 bucks provided you have NO tools at all? well, maybe more, floor jack would be helpful. best bet is to ask Dave if you wont pay or cant do it yourself.

also, my cat bolts were rusted, but i got them off with pb blaster and hand tools, no air tools. i think it took about an hour, 2 at the most and i was done. i've got a 97, and its been in wisconsin its whole life.

yeh there a bunch of how to's on how to install the y-pipe. plus the bolts and nuts on the y-pipe shouldn't be as rusted compared to the cat's b/c they shouldn't be exposed to water or anything. do as i say, ask some of ur friends that have "special" tools if u have any, and do it.

also check out the repair manual.

you shouldve watched your head lol

There are about 15 guys in the chicago area who do this type of stuff for local owners every day. Post in the regional forum. You go to a shop to have them cut the rusty bolts off then either pay one of the local guys to do it, or you can spend about the same amount of money and buy yourself a cheap set of craftsman tools and do it yourself and have tools available for future use. It's not difficult to do. Probably will take you an hour the first time you do it. After that it will take like 15 minutes to do if you have to do it again.

$200 dollars :nono: i just bought some headers and called one place so far and they told me .. hold on let me take a deep breath. ok im back $800 damn dollars to put on some freaking headers man.

Is there enough room to install the Y-pipe? As I am asking this question, I went to Pep Boys and got a couple of goodies for my car.

Garage-To-Go $30
Performance Tool® 125-Piece Deluxe Multi-Use Tool Set $30

There's also a set of air-tools I can get, but since I don't have a garage. I'll get it in the future. It only cost $79 to get it (Coleman® Powermate® 62-Piece Air Tool Set).

If I want to install the Y-pipe, replacing the bolts ahead of time is worth. How should I jack up the car if I were to install the Y-pipe to get the maximum leaveage. Does jacking the car up on the side give me more room, or from the back or the front?

warpspeed put mine on, but i would say go to a custom muff shop, i my experience they are a little more cool about modding and laws. midas sucks a$$, i hope they go under

best advise is the removal of the bolts. the cat bolts are the really only hassle during this install. You will also need a (i believe) 23 mm open end to take off the o2 but its easy and like a total of ten bolts. I wouldnt pay anyone to do anything that simple. if you were local id do it for ya.

update:

I still cannot believe this sh!t. I went to a few shops today and wanted the two bolts replaced on my cat. That's all. Nothing else. And guess what? These people are f'ing crazy.....$70+ for a removal of 2 rusty screws?!?!