Hey guys, have a relatively easy one. I noticed it sounded like my 2008 IS250 AWD was blowing some exhaust around the middle of the car, just sounded a little louder. Took it to a garage and they said there was a leak in the Y joint of the front pipe and recommended welding on a patch since a new front pipe would be $$$

So my question is, what's a reasonable price for the job? How much would a dealer charge, how much SHOULD a shop charge? I'm not sure if the crack is on the top or bottom. Does the pipe need to be removed in either circumstance? It seems like if it didn't need to be removed it would be a cheap job.

Kind of in a hurry on this one, need to find out what to expect today and get things rolling so I can either do it on Monday or hold off for another pay period. Thanks!

EDIT: Looking at other threads, it seems a lot of people call this section the mid-pipe. I was just going by what the parts diagram said (front pipe)

 

Well in DFW you would pay about $10-$20 depending on if they could weld the hole or needed to replace a section in the pipe.

http://floresmufflerandradiator.com/

Not sure about Indiana.

 

Thanks for the reply. Since it's in the Y-section, I don't think they'd be able to easily replace a section of tube. They did specifically use the word "patch".

Still curious about how much labor it would add if they had to remove the whole mid-pipe to do the welding. In underbody pictures it looks like there's a tunnel brace and a rear chassis brace that would need to be removed in addition to the O2 sensor and the actual exhaust bolts.

By the way, in case anybody was wondering, they did give me a quote, but I've been having a LOT of work done on my 3 cars at this shop and I don't remember what it was (and it's saturday so they're closed). I also am trying to make sure I'm getting a fair price. The first car I brought to the shop was my old RX-7 and they charged me peanuts to work on it. The second car I started bringing to them is my 1993 ES300. Seemed like they started charging me a bit more at that point. And now I'm bring them an '08 IS250 and jobs seem to be getting pretty expensive. You can probably see where I'm going with this