Last week she started making a small noise. Kind of a diesel engine sound but was running and idling fine. Last night as I got to work, it got louder. I went out for lunch and it got REAL loud. With flashlight in hand, I found the problem to be a broken exhaust. It's broken just below the connection where the header connects to the 90 degree piece that then connects to the cat converter. Or another way to look at it is if you start at the catalytic converter and go back towards the engine, it appears the weld is broken on the pipe right at the connection to the header(or manifold).

What's my best bet? I'm got a ride home with a buddy. Is it safe to drive to a repair shop or should I get a tow? Can I fix this myself? I'm no welder but a quick google search shows the hole header and cat convert assembly to be not too expensive.

The closest repair shop happens to be a Honda dealership...and the price of labor there scares me. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. I leave for Disney Friday (which means I'm already broke ) so I'm up against the clock. The car is currently 30 miles from home. What to do, what to do...

 

drive home... if you weld, weld it up. if you dont, just take it to a local machine shop.

 

Is it the exh or header that has cracked?

If header, what brand?

Either way, get it home and pull it off then take it and get it welded up.

 

Unless you can actually see a "hole" in the weld, it sounds more like the gasket went (only $30 for the OE gasket) than a cracked pipe at the weld. Can you get in there to take a pic? If not, unbolt the joint (from *under* the car -- the nuts that you can see from the engine bay are welded on) and you might have to use a torch to heat the nuts *above* the flange (I had to on my '04) and take a look at the metal gasket.

I'd be really surprised if the weld you're looking at is actually cracked.