Help with Flexi Pipe at end of CAT on 05 plate 1.4 16v 100bhp

[rvm]

fabia model - 05 plate 1.4 16v 100bhp fabia estate

Hi guys,

Hope im not posting a new thread for something covered. I did search the forums 1st but it didnt answer my questions.

I had my car motd a couple of months back and just before it I took the car to an independant local exhaust & tyre company to check my exhaust out ( I had a warning on the rear box on the previous mot that it was deteriorating a bit). They said the exhaust was a bit rusty but no holes and id get away with leaving it for time being. The bloke said to me tho that i was needing a new cat converter and priced it at £300+ inc fitting. I went back and spoke to the mechanic who does my mot for me and he said leave it and put it through mot then sort any issues from there. I did this and passed no problems - no warnings this time yet the exhaust is still the same.

I put my car in for a service today, All was fine but the mechanic advised me that the "flexi pipe" at the end of the catalytic convertor where it joins to the front section of exhaust is blowing and has a small hole. He put it up on the ramps and showed me it and i can see where hes talking about. I told him that I had been priced £300+ by the exhaust place up the road. He said it might be possible to get a replacement flexi pipe and cut the old one out and weld on the new one to cut down on costs. He said he wasnt sure where to source the flexi pipe and told me to check online to see if i could find one. I have looked but can only see full cats for sale.

Is it at all possible to get hold of just the flexi pipe itself or am i going to have to replace the full cat? Seems silly as he says the actual cat itself is fine.

If im going to need a new full cat can anyone point me in the right direction on what i need to go for (i kno theres ceramic vs stainless steel, and one site was saying about cats with obd sensors and ones which dont) and where is best to buy them from for value for money. Im hoping I wont need to fork out over £300!

Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Edit- since posting I have just seen these flexipipes on ebay at this link Would this be what i would need? I notice they do 1-3" diameter and various lengths.

Edited 4 July, 2011 by rvm

[fabdavrav]

fabia model - 05 plate 1.4 16v 100bhp fabia estate

If im going to need a new full cat can anyone point me in the right direction on what i need to go for (i kno theres ceramic vs stainless steel, and one site was saying about cats with obd sensors and ones which dont) and where is best to buy them from for value for money. Im hoping I wont need to fork out over £300!

Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Edit- since posting I have just seen these flexipipes on ebay at this link Would this be what i would need? I notice they do 1-3" diameter and various lengths.

Those items are what you are looking for!

There are two cats and two lambda sensors on this model....one of the cats and sensors are on the exhaust manifold..this is usually a stainless 200cell cat.....the section which is the downpipe from this cat and includes the flexi section and the second cat is best bought as an OEM part from Skoda.

I bought a 200cell race cat in full stainless and it was ok for the first 1000 miles then it caused lots of problems!!! The main reason was that the engine ECU compares the values between the two lambda sensors to see if there is enough fixed % cleaning "scrub".......my car burns very clean and only puts out about 1/10 of the mot allowance...but with the race cats the sensors couldn't see enought "cleaning" even tho' it was still so clean...so it kept throwing up fault codes...even changed the sensors (using OEM).....got rid of cat...got rid of problem!! The only way around is to have a remap on the engine ECU but this costs £££££ as it is a stage 2 remap...and most companies don't like the Magneti Marelli ECU!!!

[rum4mo]

You will need to do a lot of measuring to make sure that you are ordering the correct diameter and correct length of flexi section - and make sure that you only order up a "repair" flexi section and the highest "quality" type as the area at that end needs it. I got mine from "senior aftermarket" - I think that they manufacture both for supply to exhaust builders and for the repair market. They were very easy to deal with, my first attempt was to get a bespoke exhaust builder to sort it but he only had access to a limited range of sizes so fitted the wrong diameter and length and I ended up with resonances and it hitting the cross memember under certain conditions. After I sourced the exact correct one from Senior Aftermarket, and got it welded in, the car was back to being "as new".

[rvm]

Thanks both for your replies.

I had already been thinking about what your saying about getting the right length and diameter rum4mo, when i spotted those ones on ebay last night. I Haven't been back in touch with the welder who said he could do it for me yet to discuss it any further but should see him over the next couple of days. He said the main problem would be sourcing a flexipipe suitable.

Iv had a look on the senior aftermarket site - thanks for sharing the info on this.

I was curious to know what model you did the repair on Rum4mo and can you give an idea of how much the flexi pipe cost you from them, just so i know what ballpark prices Im looking at for the part? The ebay ones look very similar but i notice more detail on senior aftermarket, there's 3 different types, unlined, braid lined or interlock lined. Im guessing the later 2 would be best as descriptions indicate they can withstand higher temps, stronger and more durable.

Good to know you had a successful outcome with yours, any indication of prices etc would be great.

[rum4mo]

Right, the car I was repairing was a 2002 1.4 16V 75PS Polo 9N, I emailed them for advice quoting my exhaust as having an internal diameter of 42mm and an external diameter of 45mm and the length of the original flexi section to be 186mm - I think that that length was for just the flexi part weld to weld. I did suggest that what I needed was AM30045-ILOKTE - note that the repair section's ends must just fit over the original exhaust ends. The cost, back in October 2007, was £31.65 ex VAT and carriage was £11. Do make sure that you understand that the "size" of the repair section is exactly the "size" - ie the external diameter of the car's exhaust at the point where the flexi section fits. Also go with the highest heat range type as it will be getting fitted between 2 CATs. Good luck, their Tech Sales and Marketing Co-ordinator, Chris Hughes was very helpfull!

I think that I was put on to this company by someone from this forum I think, but so far I've not managed to find that posting - he used the next size down and so the repair section fitted inside the original exhaust, I worked out that that was not really the correct way to do this, and Senior Aftermarket confirmed this in their reply to my enquiry.

Originally I was a bit gutted at the thought of needing to replace the second cat assembly (cost >£300) on a VW that was only just 5 years old, so getting this part solved that problem.

Edited 6 July, 2011 by rum4mo