This morning on my way to work, I hit a typical freeway bump, nothing too jarring, but I noticed the exhaust/engine noise changed and the power felt different. A couple seconds later, I got a blinking CEL. From reading this forum, blinking CEL = stop driving ASAP. One other symptom was the idle went damn low, so low I thought the engine was going to stall. So I pulled off and called my shop. Oh, and while pulling off, the CEL stopped blinking but maintained a stead on CEL.
I got towed there, just to be cautious, and they started to poke around. They pulled codes P0037 and P0300, so they thought my post cat O2 sensor was busted. I told them it's pretty new, just ~3 months old. They checked the wires and connections and all looked fine. Based off my story that I heard engine/exhaust noise change, they looked for an exhaust leak. They found one...I didn't look but they said it's pretty significant. They said it's likely been a crack that's been propragating for a while, and the bump just popped it open. They recommend a exhaust system swap (to a Racing Beat system for P5) rather than a patch job.
My questions:
1. Can a sudden break in exhaust cause the symptoms I saw?
2. Anyone have any opinions on exhaust systems? I want a low key kind of exhaust. I'm not too concerned with adding power and not a fan of loud ricer noises.
And they cleared the codes and the car seems to run fine now, except for the occasional random misfire during idle and the muffler sounding different.
Such stress for a morning commute!
I got towed there, just to be cautious, and they started to poke around. They pulled codes P0037 and P0300, so they thought my post cat O2 sensor was busted. I told them it's pretty new, just ~3 months old. They checked the wires and connections and all looked fine. Based off my story that I heard engine/exhaust noise change, they looked for an exhaust leak. They found one...I didn't look but they said it's pretty significant. They said it's likely been a crack that's been propragating for a while, and the bump just popped it open. They recommend a exhaust system swap (to a Racing Beat system for P5) rather than a patch job.
My questions:
1. Can a sudden break in exhaust cause the symptoms I saw?
2. Anyone have any opinions on exhaust systems? I want a low key kind of exhaust. I'm not too concerned with adding power and not a fan of loud ricer noises.
And they cleared the codes and the car seems to run fine now, except for the occasional random misfire during idle and the muffler sounding different.
Such stress for a morning commute!
