This is on my girlfriend's '02 GLE. Found a break in the exhaust system. It appears that the weld between the incoming pipe, part of the muffler assembly, to its flange has broken. The flange remains bolted to the mating flange connected to the next pipe forward. Have electronic pictures but can't see how you post them.

I guess two options. 1st. Could buy a complete new muffler with this pipe and flange, plus the gasket between the flanges. Muffler assembly runs a bit over $300. How hard is it to unbolt this connection with normal rust (about 60k miles on the car)? I'd be doing this with the car jacked up and in an uheated garage. With a roller coaster winter here in New England, could be in the 60's or in the single digits. Hanging the rest of the muffler appears fairly easy.

Other option is to have the pipe rewelded to the existing or (more probably) a new flange. Since I don't have a welder, this would have to go to a shop. The flanges would have to be unbolted for this too.

I'm guessing this could be done by just about any shop that does exhaust work. Are these flanges readily available for purchases by shops?

Any other suggestions or things to watch out for? If shop costs run near the new muffler part cost I would probably go for the new muffler exept I don't want to get into it and find out I have to mess with the whole exhaust system while lying under the car.

 

wow that is exactly what has happened to my gle 2k with 60,000 miles just last week, anybody have any ideas?

 

I had the same exact thing. Take it to a muffler shop. Unless the rust has taken away a considerate amount of metal you can have them weld it in back on.

 

Or they can remove both flanges and sleeve it. This is a common problem, it happened to my original muffler last spring.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, from the side I can see, it looks like there's still a complete bead of weld on the pipe end where it disconnected from the flange.

And I hadn't thought of the sleeve option. Sounds like any muffler shop could do this pretty easy. Are we talking under $100?

 

should be under $60.

 

yep, had mine done for $45.....

 

had EXACT same thing with a 02 with 67k, gle

midas welded it for 70 bones.

3 weeks later I get another rattle. go back and he shows me the bracket closer to the engine has rusted off. THis is the 1st time I noticed my entire exaust system is a big pile of rust

He welded that back on for 40 and told me to start thinking about replacing the entire exhaust for around 500-600$

 

You do live in the "rust" belt.

My exhaust is rusty to all hell. All I know is that if something breaks again in my exhaust that means time for an upgrade.

 

This exact problem happened to my 00 gle at 65k. I took it to a muffler shop and they welded it for for like $35. Unfortunately, I fear that it has cracked again somewhere else. I'm thinking about just going aftermarket, but its too damn cold here in cleveland to do it until spring.

 

Brought it to two muffler shops. Both said they couldn't weld the flange back on and said they'd have to replace the entire muffler. Both quoted job at about $400, and this would be with an aftermarket "generic" muffler.

Had the second shop bust the nuts off the studs on the flange for $20. That's the part of the job I didn't want to do in the driveway.

I now have the flange. The threads on the studs appear OK. I'm thinking about loose fitting the flange back to mark its orientation, taking off the muffler, taking the flange and the muffler to a shop and see if I can get it welded while off the car. Then I can hang and bolt it back in.

Worse come to worse, looks like I can order a complete new muffler, short pipe, and flange from Jerry Rome Nissan's on-line system, for a little over $300. Now that the flange nuts have been broken off, doesnt look too hard to reinstall.

I'm sure there are other aftermaket units even cheaper or higher performance muffler but I'm a "stock" kind of guy. Although in this case, I at least hope the replacement OEM unit lasts longer than the original.

 

Have them sleeve it, they dont have to weld it. both flanges come off and they run a new piece of pipe over the two and secure the ends.

They are just trying to get money out of you.