I'd noticed the Golf sounding louder for a little while, but I'd been able to ignore it… Until the thing finally actually fell off (and unfortunately stranded Suzanne):
The break was right at the back of the Catalytic converter. Midas (and really anyone online) wanted $800-1000 for a replacement pipe (unlike on the Trooper the rear pipe was fine and I just needed the front section, which was available, just really expensive!)… That didn't seem right. So I pulled out my grinder, torch, and went and bought a $8.39 pipe section from Advance Auto Parts…
A reasonably nice weld, even if it's ground down smooth...
I realized my repair section was actually a bit bigger than the original pipe I'd had, so it didn't fit in the existing joint with the rear pipe- so I had to harvest a short piece of the original pipe (which was in ok shape) and weld that on the back end to make it fit:
The finished pipe, ready to install.
To prevent this kind of thing from happening again (I noticed that the pipe had failed where it had been welded- makes sense sense the aluminized coating would have been burned or ground off in the welding process)- I painted the welds and actually the whole catalytic converter with POR-15. Hopefully it lasts a good long time!
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