Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Am I getting hosed? Exhaust on 92 Dodge Spirit

My wifes Dad gave us his old 92 Dodge Spirit 3.0 V-6 . The car is a cream puff, he had all the maintenance done at his local Dodge stealerships, and always on the recommended schedule. The thing is, he lived back in Michigan for some time and the exhaust system really took a rusty beating. It is basically all crumbling and shot from the cat back and is noisy as hell. Not only that, I think its getting in the car. I've sat in there before and started to get a little headache while sitting in there with the air on. Wife uses the car alot, too, not good.

I have the car in today at Meineke because they are the only guys open on Saturday, and I don't have time to deal with this during the week.

They came back with $250 - Out the door to replace everything from the cat back. They're putting in new piping, clamps, hangers, and a new higher quality muffler since we are eliminating the factory resonator to save money.

Is that a fair price or am I getting bent over? It's been a long time since I've had exhaust work done. In my experience, the little indy shops do things cheaper than the chains, but those guys are probably fishing on their weekends. Back in 98, I had dual exhaust put on my 70 Mustang WITH 2 flowmasters and it was about $190, so I about puked when I got the estimate on this little single exhausted Dodge.

They first came at me with $350 (to do the identical to factory replacement) and I was like no, thats not going to work. Then they rebuilt the system with just a straight pipe back, and using a better quality muffler to make sure it stays quiet and came up with the $250 figure.

Anyone have any exhaust work done recently care to comment?

Sounds about right to me from a decent muffler shop. My mom's Escort had to have new piping from the cat back and a new muffler and it was close to $300.

$250 doesn't sound bad. You don't mention if you have dual exhaust. Get that exhaust fixed if it is leaking into the car............

Thanks guys. Ya, like I said, I gave them the OK to go ahead and do it.

It is a single, stock exhaust. I mentioned that too but I know my post was really long.

Ya, I think I've come to terms with it.

Seeing as how the car is free. I don't see the problem.

A quick check at my account balance reveals the problem

Oh well... its done. I got it back a little while ago and its nice and quiet!