Symptoms of an Exhaust Leak

The exhaust system plays an important role for your car and yourself. Placed at the bottom of your car, the exhaust system can purify the polluted gases from the engine which may do great harm to your health or even take your life since the gases is sometimes odorless but poisonous, and exhaust the gases to the air less harmfully.

An exhaust leak will disable the whole exhaust system and result in the failing of your car in the emissions test and put yourself in danger. So, it’s of great importance for you to notice the following symptoms which mean that there may be an exhaust leak in your exhaust system.

Loud Noise from the Engine

If you find your vehicle has a loud noise around the engine which sounds like a loud rumble, you’d better have your exhaust system checked. The exhaust system has components like mufflers which can reduce the noise of the engine, so if your vehicle suddenly has a loud noise especially when accelerating, there may be a leak in the exhaust system.

Gas Smell

Although for most of the times, the gases exhausted is odorless, sometimes you may still smell something when driving with an exhaust leak, especially the smell of gasoline. Once you find a strong odor persistently coming from your car, open the windows at once and have the pipes of the exhaust system checked as soon as possible because you may breath in some odorless but poisonous gases at the same time.

Decreased Acceleration and Power

If you find your car can not accelerate as efficiently as usual or your engine can no longer provide enough power, then there may be an exhaust leak in your exhaust system. What’s more, if the leaking problems are not solved, the power losing problem will continue or even become worse.

Fuel Inefficiency

If you find your vehicle have to be refueled much more frequently, there may be an exhaust leak under your car. When there is a leaking in your exhaust system, the air-to-fuel ratio will be reduced, which means your engine can no longer work efficiently, and your vehicle has to use more fuel to run the same distance. Compared with the extra money you have to pay for the fuels again and again, the repair charges are much lower.

Gas Pedal Vibrations

Even a tiny leak will bring gas pedal vibrations, and the vibrations will become stronger once the leak has not been fixed for a long time. However, not all gas pedal vibrations are caused by exhaust leaks, and different causes will lead to different vibrations, so experience is required in this kind of examination. The suggestion is once you feel your gas pedal has a strange vibration, bring your vehicle to the repair shop to have a professional examination.

How to Prevent an Exhaust Leak

First of all, we have to know the main causes of the exhaust leak. There are two main causes of this: bad condition of the road and rusty or damaged components of the exhaust system. If your vehicle always run on bad condition roads, like rough roads, your vehicle bumps all the time, so as the exhaust system. This will abrade the components of the exhaust system and at last punch them. The gases may leak through the holes and damaged places, and the same is true for rusty problems.

Therefor, a simple way to prevent exhaust leak is to drive your vehicles on roads with good conditions as much as possible and clean your vehicle after driving on salty or muddy roads, since the stains stick to the components may cause corrosion, and remember to dry your vehicle after the cleaning.

What Can We do after Finding an Exhaust Leak

For common drivers, you can first have a check of your vehicle exhaust system to find where the leak is. If it’s just a small problem, you can try to fix it by changing the broken parts, but one thing you have to keep in mind is that most components are welded together tightly, so it would be difficult to replace ourselves. So the best way to solve the exhaust leak problems is to ask a repair shop to do the work for you. Though this may cost you some money, it is the safest and the most quickly way.