I'm tired of replacing mine. This is the 2nd one to start leaking. Going to have the resonator replaced soon, would putting solid pipe in for the flex pipe damage anything?
if you have completely solid mounts like i do the engine doesnt move so no flex pipe need because of that, but if you think of the entire system, if you dont have something that flexes it will just crack from moving around under the car
there are two exhaust designs for the contour, one has a flex pipe and one used a donut gasket with a 2 bolt flange. get a 2-bolt y-pipe and cat and you can convert over.