Vauxhall Meriva flexipipe fitment
Remember that credit card advert, ‘Your Flexible Friend’, of the 1980s? It certainly got some people out of trouble – and you also could say the same about today’s replacement universal f lexipipes for your car’s exhaust.
In simple terms a flexipipe’s role is to allow for some flex and ‘give’ into the exhaust system to compensate for engine movement which apart from absorbing vibrations also helps protect the entire system from stress and premature fracturing, including the expensive catalytic converter. Remember also the days when many vehicles suffered from annoying exhaust resonance phases? Well, the advent of the f lexipipe has gone a long way in alleviating that tiresome trait as well.
Mounted on the front downpipe, near the exhaust manifold, the f lexipipe is quite a long-lasting sur vivor and many motorists may never incur the trouble and expense of replacing one. You soon know if the f lexipipe is failing as the exhaust emits a distinctive rasping sound and it’s a MOT fail point of course. What’s more if the contraption is mounted ahead of the Lambda sensor, it’s likely to send mixed messages affecting engine performance – in our case a slight hike in fuel consumption was noticed.
When it comes to replacement there’s two choices – a new front exhaust section or fitting a universal f lexipipe which involves cutting out the defective section and marrying the replacement to the existing exhaust which we have done here on a 90,000-mile 2006 Vauxhall Meriva 1.6 (petrol), although the fitting procedure applies to most vehicles.
There’s is a third way and that’s to use a permanent metal exhaust repair wrap. Costing from £15-£20, we’ve used one before on a VW Golf and it not only did work but s
