Alex Smith

My friend has borrowed my car for a few months (2004 A4 Audi V6), yesterday she told me that her other friend rear-ended her "very lightly", after which the car exhaust started making a weird noise. She says she didn't feel any impact but heard the collision. The bumper (from what they say) was not touched.

They took it to a mechanic who is a mutual friend of theirs, and he stated that the issue is that the flex-pipe shattered from impact due to old age, quoting the repair at $300. He also suggested not going to the dealership which would charge thousands for replacing the entire exhaust system (I'm well aware of dealerships overcharging but I want to make sure the friend is not hiding a several-thousand dollar repair with a temporary $300 fix).

The friend said he would pay for the repair and wants to avoid involving the insurance. I'm not against it, but I want to make sure I fully understand the problem myself and that there are no additional issues I would encounter later due to said friend of a friend cutting corners.

Since I'm unable to see the car until tomorrow, and therefore can't post photos, what should I look for as signs of further damage? Does this repair/problem from a minor rear-end collision sound reasonable to you? What else do you expect to get damaged during such collision?

A few things concern me:

• I've been rear-ended before and I have bumped another car before, I know that bumper is the first to be hit and the first to scratch or crack, the fact that it wasn't affected seems odd to me
• I also have typically "felt" the impact before "hearing" it, which makes me wonder how light it really was
• This friend has also racked up over a hundred dollars of toll fees without telling me in the past (although she paid it after I showed her the toll readings), which is what makes me suspicious to begin with, I don't know if she's telling me the full story
  

I'm considering having an independent mechanic look at it, but I don't want to be driving the car around in this state or being difficult to my friend and this mechanic who is doing them a favor by charging less for the repair.

RobsMods

Hey man. Figure you probably have this sorted by now but I wanted to post in case anyone else has this issue in the future.
Same thing happened to me. Except it was a guy ran a ford focus into my back bumper while I was stopped waiting for someone to make a turn in front of me. This guy hit me at about 50 mph. He completely totalled his car. Front end caved in bad, bags deployed, radiator busted, lights busted, some real serious damage. I thought by the force of the impact that the back of my car would be crushed. I get out and look and my bumper is missing some paint, has a few little gouged areas from his front license plate screws, and a slight dent in the bumper that's not really noticeable unless you're looking for it. I was shocked at how bad his damage was and how minimal mine was. Audi for the win!
But the car was much louder. And I could hear it coming from under the passenger seat area. Ended up being the flex pipe section on that side. The exhaust tips got pushed forward by the guys pointy Ford focus bumper. This crushed the flex piece and when it went back open it had a huge crack on one side. I looked around for advice on sizing/type etc. And bought a new flex pipe section. 2.25x4. Cut out the old section and welded in the new. Took maybe 40 mins total. Mainly because 2.25 was far too large a diameter. We had to find things to put in there to fill the gap for it to properly weld. So is you do order a section I would go a bit smaller diameter. I searched the forums and that seemed to be the diameter people suggested..but it was way to large. Granted it was nice and easy slipping over the factory welds but left too much space that had to be filled.

anyways. Yeah even with a car hitting me stopped at 50 mph I only had a busted flex pipe and could use a new bumper or just paint this one and say screw it. Not that bad really.
best of luck.