Exhaust flexi replacement

[kerraddoo01]

Hi - has anyone had any experience of needing an exhaust flexi replaced? Does an OEM supplier exist?

I bought my RS4 in 2017 and it's been a good experience apart from a new battery and eventually changing the mini coils for a set of R8 coils it's been hassle free. I've no wish to sell it. However recently MOT'd, which it passed as usual, plus a minor service (oil change etc) which picked up "exhaust flexi leaking slightly".

Audi have said that they won't supply exhaust flexis separately only complete with a catalytic converter at £3.4k per side ie £6.4k. Which to me is ridiculous. I'll be revisiting it with the garage I use (not Audi) in July but would be interested to hear if anyone has had similar problems - and solutions? Cheers

[JRC1]

So iirc the flexi is part of the downpipe, which would align with what you've said above. This downpipe can be in 3 different formats. 1) OEM with OEM cats, 2) aftermarket downpipe with sports cats or 3) aftermarket downpipe with decats.

I have ran both 2 and 3, and would recommend 2 for various reasons.

There's a company out there called Zinram who offer option 2. They are very well reviewed by a number of owners and these are now the ones that I am running. If you type "Zinram RS4 B7" in on eBay you'll see them. They offer 100 CEL and 200 CEL. 100 less restrictive but closer to a decat. 200 is the more common variant and will pass an MOT without any issues. Milltek also offers these but they are more expensive and personally I don't really rate Milltek's build quality too much, but they are another option.

Option 4 would be to get some custom ones made up by an exhaust fabricator. I absolutely would not go OEM at that price though.

Also FWIW the OEM cats are super restrictive I believe they are 400 or even 600 CEL. You'll notice a considerable power increase by swapping them out for sports cats.

[kerraddoo01]

Thanks for that - comprehensive and useful. Should be helpful, I see what you mean. At this stage I'm not sure how big a problem it is, as yet, since it didn't fail its MOT and described as leaking slightly. Having said that it's not something that's going to go away and can only get worse. I'll let you know how things progress but it won't be before mid July.

Appreciated. Cheers

[Ed Chappell]

Hi,
I had 2 wrecked flexi couplings on an RS4 I bought recently which had been lowered too much and was grounding on speed bumps.
I went through all the options too including the Audi price shock!
In the end I used a local specialist called Stainless Creations in Falkirk, Scotland, who replaced both flexi joints for me for £280. They made a very neat Job of them too.
In my case I had to remove both down-pipes for other reasons so they did the pipes off the car. But they did tell me that they normally replace flexis on the B7 RS4 while the pipes are still on the car.
If you don't live in Central Scotland try finding a similar specialist locally.
I hope this helps.

[kerraddoo01]

Thanks for this. That’s well worth knowing. I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up going down a similar route here. Certainly sounds more affordable! Cheers