Even if road salt doesn’t kill mufflers, it seems to eat the hangers for the whole exhaust system on some cars. Once a few of them are compromised, it’s only a matter of time before the insufficiently supported components flex due to the car bouncing and heating/cooling, then metal fatigue develops and things start to come apart.
For maximum non-stainless exhaust system life:
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Don’t drive on salted roads.
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Warm the exhaust by driving a minimum of 5 miles each time you start the engine.
I have a car over 20 years old with the original exhaust system.
When my wife’s '95 Civic had a stock exhaust it seemed like I was changing a part every year or even sooner than that. She drives only 8 miles to work and the exhaust never really got hot enough to burn off any condensation on such short trips. She gave the Civic to my daughter 2 1/2 years ago and I put an aftermarket exhaust on it (considerably thicker materials) and I’ve yet to change even one piece. My daughter drives it to school (90 miles one-way). We live in rusty salt crazy Pennsylvania, where they treat the roads with a liquid mixture before the snowstorms then treat the roads with rock salt during and after thee snowstorm. Exhaust seems to be gonna last a lot longer with this combination. Rocketman
Mufflers last longer when they are hot enough to burn off condensation. My 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass had the muffler mounted transversly at the rear of the car and I had a short trip to work. The exhaust cooled off as it traveled to the rear of the car and often I would see condensation dripping out the weep hole on the muffler. On the other hand, I have a lawnmower that I have had since 1988 and another mower I purchased in 1992. Neither mower has ever needed a muffler. These little air cooled engines have a hot exhaust and no condensation collects in the muffler.
Rocketman, I had to put a cat-back system on my '95 Civic. I think it was made by Bozal. I never thought of 8 miles as that short a trip, though. I’d think 8 miles would warm things up pretty well.
"Didn't the industry largely switch over to stainless steel exhaust systems in the mid-late 80's?"
Nope…90’s. Wasn’t until the mandated warranties that manufacturers were forced to put on exhaust systems.
I agree that muffler life depends on driving style and envronment. We just sold a 1994 Nissan with 135,000 miles on it. The car had 2 replacement muffler after the original rusted through. The replacements were cheap aftermarket ones, and the last one still showed no rust or internal collapse of the baffles.
The car was used mostly for city driving in an areas with lots of winter road salt. So, about 8 years was our average estimated life.
I have also ridden in limousines that were running all the time and 100,00 miles on the original muffler was not unusual. As stated by others, thorough warm-up and blowing out the condensation is important to long life.
Doubleclutch: 8 miles is kinda short in the winter time . . . car never really warms up, maybe the engine will get to temp but the rest of the car is usually still frozen. Add frozen slush and salty slop splashing up onto the underside of the car and you have a perfect recipe for rust. We live in Pennsylvania and winters can get pretty cold and nasty. I’ll betcha I put 10 or 11 different pieces of exhaust pipe on that car and every time I turned around I had a rusted-out piece. The system I put on is a Pacesetter and I eliminated the CAT with a (stainless steel) test pipe. Works like a charm. Rocketman)
One more thing . . . it seems to HELP extend the life of my exhaust and makes for less body and undercarriage rust if I park the vehicle outside during the winter (salty and slushy) months instead of inside of a semi-heated garage. Colder start-ups I agree, but less rust. Rocketman