mancuso@psuvax.UUCP (Pat Mancuso) (03/23/84)
I too have had bad experiences with Midas muffler. Last year my
car (a 1968 Firebird) developed a hole in a pipe just in front of
the muffler, so I gave Midas a call, explained my problem, and
asked if they could fix it for me. I was told 'Sure...just bring
the car over and we'll take care of it.'
The mechanic poked around for a while and after some head-
scratching he told me that because I had headers on the car, the
whole exhaust system was out of line, and that he could not just
replace that one piece of pipe. He did mention that he could re-
place the pipe with the hole in it, the muffler and the tailpipe
with new pieces (then why wouldn't he just change the one
pipe!?!?!) for the sum of $85 + labor. He added that because he
would have to 'custom fit' the new pipes to my old system the la-
bor charge would be quite high (~$80). The bottom line whas that
he wanted to charge me $165 to put on a new muffler system from
just in front of the differential to the tailpipe.
The headers had been put on the car (by the previous owner) by
cutting the Y pipe at the front of the car and putting collector
pipes on it. The rest of the exhaust system remained stock (I
know because my father has the same model car with the stock sys-
tem on it), and yet this bozo was telling me that because I had
headers on the car I would have to pay more.
I then asked him what it would cost to junk the whole system up
to the headers and put on a set of dual exhausts (Midas adver-
tises custom installations) and got the runaround once again.
The mechanic informed me that there was no way that he could fit
a dual exhaust system on the car because there wasn't enough
room. He said that the mufflers would be so low that they would
scrape if I went over a curb.
I left Midas after wasting 2 hours there.
After some asking around, I found out about a local place that
was rumored to do good work. I went there, and got a custom fit
dual exhaust system for my car with a lifetime warranty on the
mufflers. They did an excellent job on the car. The pipes and
mufflers fit under the car very well, and the lowest part of the
system now is the collectors on the headers , so I have never had
any problem with it scraping. I even got a break on the price
because I HAD headers! The reason was that since the headers
exit further back than the stock exhaust manifolds, they would
save a couple of feet of pipe and the hassle of bending it up to
meet the manifolds.
Midas, go suck an egg.
---
Overall there is a smell of fried onions. (fnord)
:+: Pat Mancuso
:+: Penn State University
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