Her car is nearly as loud as a fighter jet on takeoff. I looked underneath and discovered the original flex portion of her exhaust had previously degraded and had been replaced with a new flex piece which had also degraded.
Flex areas I have seen in the past have a braided steel look like this picture below. While they do not last forever, they are pretty tough.
Here is the part I removed from her car. I have never seen anything like this before on an exhaust. It appears to be some kind of plastic/rubber material with a springy piece of wire running through it. As you can see, the plastic/rubber material is extremely dry and brittle. Not surprising since this thing sits about two feet from the exhaust manifold.
Has anyone ever seen a flex piece like this used on an exhaust? Maybe this really is a legitimate part but I am speculating some backyard mechanic fixed the previous problem with what he had available to him. The piece reminds me a longer version of hose you would typically see used as an air intake above the engine.
I ended up going to Advanced Auto Parts and buying a super cheap universal piece of flex pipe. It came with one clamp so I had to buy a second one. All total it came to $13. I already had leftover exhaust cement so no cost for that.
