2008 S6 Flex pipes

A6 All/ S6 All
#1

Hey guys…

Heard a nice little ticking sound from under the car a week ago and saw that the passenger side upstream flex pipe has rusted out and is leaking (And I’m guessing the driver’s side isn’t too far from doing the same, either!).

Question I have is has anyone heard of someone being able to cut out the old section(s) and weld in a new flex joint without having to basically drop the entire exhaust? I had this done on my old 2.7 without much hassle from a local muffler shop that had a pretty skilled welder. Is there enough room for a skilled welder to let the exhaust hang a little on the 5.2 and then go to town?

The passenger side doesn’t look too bad if it has to be dropped but the driver’s side looks to be a total pain in the ass given how far up the bolts are. I’m not opposed to tackling this myself but if I can have this fixed for 5/600 USD then I say that’s money well spent. I really HATE exhaust work. ;D

Just trying to weigh all my options here before pulling the trigger and committing to a given direction.

#2

For anyone else searching for an answer to this in the future, the answer is no, there is not enough room to drop them down a little bit, cut the old flex joints out and weld new ones in.

Given the extent of how badly the hardware was beaten up and how recessed the bolts are off of the driver’s side manifold, I bit the bullet and took it in the German Auto Specialists in Plymouth Meeting, PA. Normally I do everything on my own but no thanks! About $1500 later they got me squared away. Guy who did the work said it took him roughly 10 hours of labor (I had him replace studs/bolts on the rest of the exhaust while he was under there).

#3

…a couple hundred more and you could’ve had a full SS catback

#4

I pulled the Y pipe off the headers to get to the trans pan - MAN are the primaries and collectors almost hilariously small!

#5

This.

#6

You got all the way in and didn’t remove them :-?

#7

had to pull the Y’s to get to 4 bolts on the trans pan. :frowning:

#8

This as well. Sorry OP I don’t know how I missed this post I would have said you can’t get to the manifold flex joints without getting the motor down. I mean you technically can but it won’t result in good welding.

#9

Unless there’s another flex before the cats, there’s flex joints on the Ypipe. It absolutely sucks to get off; Had to use a really long extension and a wobble socket to get the top ones off. Honestly, the diameter of the Y pipe is hilariously small. If you could fab up a new Y that’s the same ID as the cat outlets (2.75"?) you’d probably see some gains.

#10

Agreed, for a few hundred more I could have bought the parts. However the condition of the bolts/hardware on the Y pipes was so bad that there was no way around it being such a labor intensive job. I should have taken pictures of the driver’s side bolts/studs on the Y pipe down stream of the cats. It was absurd how little resemblance they had to bolts at that point. The previous owner of this car was from the Boston area so I can only imagine it was because of snow and salt doing its thing over countless heat/cold cycles!