stainless steel exhausts

time for a new exhaust on the s1, old steel one finally split into two, already on the car when I got it around 2008, never had stainless are they worth the extra moolah, do they really last forever?

Moolah, moolah?
You've been watching too many adverts starring Top Cat !

that ad was a blast from the past, he was prime time tv when I were a lad

Definitely worth the extra moolah, it may not last forever, but a huge increase in longetivity compared to non ss.

thx, guess I shall just have to cough up

You can buy x4 standard for the price of ss you do the maths

How many times longer does SS last?

No idea how long it lasts as it's now 4 years old and not failed, but living close to the sea the old ones were lucky to do 2 or 3 years.

a std one lasts me years due to doing long runs and the exhaust getting hot and staying dry.

I had a magnex stainless one yrs ago on a normal car which was great until I split it and had to find someone to weld it

Remember there are different grades of stainless and some grades will still corrode. Watch out for stainless exhausts made from very thin tube (to reduces costs but still allowing the stainless bling word) as they can resonate and may be structurally weaker. Personally I stick with standard mild steel as it is cheaper, potentially stronger and can be changed many times for the price of a good SS one. Before you go for SS ask what grade steel it is and the wall thickness and do a comparison between manufacturers (also google the steel spec for corrosion resistance)

And some silencers, so I've heard somewhere, have mild steel baffles inside the shiney ss box.
They rot, drop orf and rattle away inside the box for eternity or longer, oh...and yer landy will sound all chavvy too.
I had my new exhaust system shot blasted and metal sprayed 8 yrs ago (200tdi) and it still looks good. Got it done for free by mate who snuck it into work but he don't work there anymore. No idea how much it would cost to have that done but doubt it's cheap.

What's metal spray? Do you mean zinc rich spray?

They called it metal spraying, I've just rung my mate and he says it's wire,on a reel, approximately 3mm thick, made of zinc/ally mix which is fed through a compressed air driven gun which is fed with propane and oxygen. The gas is ignited and the wire is melted and atomised and sprayed onto clean freshly shot blasted steel and built up in microns, to the customers required thickness. He told me loads more but that's the gist of it.

Sounds tremendous. Sounds like spray on galvanisation and obviously lasts a long time.