DivByZero
SILVER Star
I've owned my 1HZ diesel 80 series for around 4 years now, and I take pride in the fact that it's in significantly better condition overall now than when I got it. One exception to that is the exhaust, which is pretty much rooted end to end. It's leaking from every gasket, and it's got plenty of rust and more than a few holes and tears, just a bit of which you can see below:
I'm not afraid to shell out some money to replace parts that are showing their age before they break, and I like to buy genuine parts. In this case though, I'm of two minds. Maybe it's from a place of ignorance, but I just don't see the exhaust as being very important. It's just a glorified pipe taking fumes from A to B, so should I bother doing anything? I'm not worried about looks. Although it's my DD, this car does a fair bit of offroading when I can, and I consider some mud up the side and some dings here and there to be a badge of honour, so I haven't been too worried about the soot these leaks are spraying onto bits of the undercarriage. I did a lot of work plugging up holes and fixing some bits of rust a year or so back, and I don't seem to be getting fumes into the cabin, so maybe I just ignore it?
At the same time, I do want to keep this car for another 10+ years, and since it's going to continue to deteriorate, I figure I'll probably need to give it some attention at some point. I could get secondhand bits from a wreck, but they'll be the same age or older, and will I just be looking at the same issues two years from now? The price would probably be good though. I can get a full new genuine exhaust from the Toyota dealer for around $1400 AUD, which isn't exactly cheap. I normally order all my bits through Partsouq, and Amayama when I have to, but with the size of these bits shipping is the killer, and the dealer actually works out on top, or as close to as to make going online not worth the effort. Again, I think that $1400 is a lot to pay when I don't necessarily rate the exhaust as being that important.
Then there are aftermarket options. I can see a variety of exhaust systems knocked up by random third parties starting at around half the price of a genuine exhaust. Most of these seem to be made for quite a different kind of owner though. I don't care about a "performance exhaust", and frankly something made out of shiny stainless steel would look very out of place indeed, but I suppose if the original exhaust was stainless it would probably still be going strong today. I generally dislike third party options though. I rate Toyota engineers pretty highly, and I know their stuff is made to a certain standard. I could buy a third party system, but it feels like rolling the dice on what could end up to be a fairly dodgy system, being weaker, fitting poorly, or otherwise worse than the original parts in ways I can't necessarily anticipate, that if I'm going to put down that much money, it feels like I may as well go all in and get the new genuine parts.
Then there's the way I use the vehicle. As I said, it does see some offroading. Although I don't go in for insane rock crawling or anything that I feel is seriously risking ruining my rig, it does see some reasonable 4wd tracks from time to time, and I can see marks where the exhaust has taken hits over the years. The leaky exhaust probably helped me last year when I got a bit bogged in a mud hole, and plugged the tailpipe full of dirt when backing up. At least the holes gave the gases somewhere to go! I also worry it might be pointless sinking money into this issue if I'm likely to hit something on a trail and put a tear in the new system a few years from now.
I'm after any and all opinions and recommendations. What would you do with this?
I'm not afraid to shell out some money to replace parts that are showing their age before they break, and I like to buy genuine parts. In this case though, I'm of two minds. Maybe it's from a place of ignorance, but I just don't see the exhaust as being very important. It's just a glorified pipe taking fumes from A to B, so should I bother doing anything? I'm not worried about looks. Although it's my DD, this car does a fair bit of offroading when I can, and I consider some mud up the side and some dings here and there to be a badge of honour, so I haven't been too worried about the soot these leaks are spraying onto bits of the undercarriage. I did a lot of work plugging up holes and fixing some bits of rust a year or so back, and I don't seem to be getting fumes into the cabin, so maybe I just ignore it?
At the same time, I do want to keep this car for another 10+ years, and since it's going to continue to deteriorate, I figure I'll probably need to give it some attention at some point. I could get secondhand bits from a wreck, but they'll be the same age or older, and will I just be looking at the same issues two years from now? The price would probably be good though. I can get a full new genuine exhaust from the Toyota dealer for around $1400 AUD, which isn't exactly cheap. I normally order all my bits through Partsouq, and Amayama when I have to, but with the size of these bits shipping is the killer, and the dealer actually works out on top, or as close to as to make going online not worth the effort. Again, I think that $1400 is a lot to pay when I don't necessarily rate the exhaust as being that important.
Then there are aftermarket options. I can see a variety of exhaust systems knocked up by random third parties starting at around half the price of a genuine exhaust. Most of these seem to be made for quite a different kind of owner though. I don't care about a "performance exhaust", and frankly something made out of shiny stainless steel would look very out of place indeed, but I suppose if the original exhaust was stainless it would probably still be going strong today. I generally dislike third party options though. I rate Toyota engineers pretty highly, and I know their stuff is made to a certain standard. I could buy a third party system, but it feels like rolling the dice on what could end up to be a fairly dodgy system, being weaker, fitting poorly, or otherwise worse than the original parts in ways I can't necessarily anticipate, that if I'm going to put down that much money, it feels like I may as well go all in and get the new genuine parts.
Then there's the way I use the vehicle. As I said, it does see some offroading. Although I don't go in for insane rock crawling or anything that I feel is seriously risking ruining my rig, it does see some reasonable 4wd tracks from time to time, and I can see marks where the exhaust has taken hits over the years. The leaky exhaust probably helped me last year when I got a bit bogged in a mud hole, and plugged the tailpipe full of dirt when backing up. At least the holes gave the gases somewhere to go! I also worry it might be pointless sinking money into this issue if I'm likely to hit something on a trail and put a tear in the new system a few years from now.
I'm after any and all opinions and recommendations. What would you do with this?