I floored the car today and didn't make very smooth transitions between gears so the car jerked some during gear changes. Afterwards, I noticed my muffler got louder and there was some clanking sound under the car when I go over bumpy parts of the road.

Exhaust loose? How hard to fix?

 

Did you look under the car to see if anything was broken or loose?

Grab the muffler and shake it around hard to see if you can isolate where in the piping the clanking is coming from.

 

yeah jerk the muffler and if its loose just get some muffler hangers

 

So uh I checked the muffler, the whole muffler is broken off from the b-pipe right at the joint on the muffler side.

Any recommendations? New muffler? Get it welded?

Mike

**update**
I called a shop and they said its usually too rusty to weld back. Is there anyway I can temporarily put it back together for now?

 

Depends on how much money you want to spend and what you want. If you just want something relatively inexpensive then get the broken portion repaired (welded). For a few hundred you can get a full cat-back system. That'll give you a little HP, but much more noise.

 

I just went through the same thing you did tdash. The weld on the flange that connects the muffler to the b-pipe broke in half, and you could really tell the difference.

There are shops out there that will weld a 'sleeve' over the 2 pipes, and eliminate the flanges. I went with the complete muffler replacement, and got a Bosal muffler. No complains thus far, and the car is nice and quiet.

Later on in the summer i'm going to look at a y-pipe and a b-pipe to go with the new muffler.

 

Have you looked at one from Advanced Auto Parts? I'm probably going to order the Bosal one from drivewire. Also, there is an Anso one too. Don't know if there is a difference.

 

Thats funny the exact same thing happened to me, b-pipe broken away from the muffler, I think I'm just going to replace complete exhaust.........it looks like the whole thing is pretty much rusted through

 

Can't say i've heard of them. Then again, i've only had the Max for a year now, and i'm still learning things.

Everywhere I called around, their replacement mufflers were either Bosal, Walker or OEM. OEM was too expensive to replace, and I had been hearing some good things about Bosal mufflers (as I have some 240sx friends who have some), and it was installed for 250 CDN. No brainer for me, considering the stealership wanted 550 for the muffler alone, and 330 for the b-pipe.

 

Yeah, it seems to be a common problem, not only in the maximas, but in the i30's, the pathfinders and the altimas. That EXACT same spot.

The shop I went to said that they see that too often, and they think it should be something that Nissan should address directly, but they haven't yet. He said he must do the exact same repair/replace to nissans at least 3 or 4 times a week, on varying cars.

 

Yup, happened to me to, same spot. I had it welded back together, it's not a permanent solution but it works for now. Hopefully I can get ahold of Frankencar, if not I am going to get a Cattman cat-back shortly.

 

I already ordered a new oem replacement muffler from drivewire. I should have taken it to a shop to try welding first but it might be too rusted anyways. How do I remove the screws from the connection point? I'm asking because I heard that I might have to cut it and I don't know how to do that. I want to do it myself.