ouch - think I've damaged my exhaust

M

moodhead

Member
 Marbella, Spain
I think I've damaged my exhaust (2003 3.0), I was coming out of a car park at night and hit some kind of crazy pothole and heard an enormous noise. Straight away I noticed a vibration as I was accelerating but not a major noise like a broken exhaust. Anyway I popped the car to an Indie BMW garage he put it up on the ramp and while nothing is 'broken' as such he could see that the Cat was slightly dented. He reckons that it's possible that the ceramic inside the cat could be damaged / broken. I haven't noticed any drop in power or increase in fuel consumption only that around 2k RPM I'm getting an irritating vibration / noise.

I've searched the forum for exhaust threads but couldn't find anything on prices of original / oem / aftermarket full system or CAT replacements. Anybody have any ideas on what damage could be done, suggestions for a replacement. According to the garage a replacement BMW cat could run over 1,000 euros which is the last thing I need at the moment. I wondered if I can repair it or if there is a more cost effective alternative to the BMW one and whether it's worth going OEM / aftermarket.

If anybody has any ideas / suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.
 
The cat may be fine, but you may have knocked the heatshield so that it rattles against something.

Get it checked out properly before you go spending hundreds on repairs.

I don't even think the cats are ceramic anymore either - they tend to be a more hard-wearing metal catalyst.
 
Thanks guys, I was also thinking breakers yard and hopefully you're right mmm-five, that would be great if it's just the heatshield. I'll have it checked out again. Out of interest what would the symptoms be if it was damaged inside?

Cheers :D
 
moodhead said:
Thanks guys, I was also thinking breakers yard and hopefully you're right mmm-five, that would be great if it's just the heatshield. I'll have it checked out again. Out of interest what would the symptoms be if it was damaged inside?

Cheers :D
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If it's a ceramic cat then once you remove the cat and shake it, it'll sound like gravel inside a metal pipe. If it's a metal one, then you're more likely to hear a tinny rattle as some of the elements touch the side of the casing.

Alternatively you could get a aftermarket standard or sports cat, for less than half of an OEM BMW one.
 
moodhead said:
Thanks guys, I was also thinking breakers yard and hopefully you're right mmm-five, that would be great if it's just the heatshield. I'll have it checked out again. Out of interest what would the symptoms be if it was damaged inside?

Cheers :D
Click to expand...
The first and most obvious sympton when i had a defective cat on a 2003 Boxster was a vary strong "old fashioned" smell like an engine running rich as if you had the choke pulled out plus the engine management sensors would see a fault down stream and the lambda sensor (oxygen) would almost certainly pick it up
If nothing else,get a Co reading done
Mike
 
Thanks guys, I'll take it into an exhaust place and get them to check it out. In terms of symptoms I haven't noticed any difference in smells, general driving etc. It's literally only around 2k RPM that I get the noise and vibration. Out of interest how much are we talking for a sports cat / any recommendations / benefits in terms of performance etc? Cheers
 
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