Many drivers tend to disregard the exhaust system of their automobile. People may think that the exhaust system does nothing more than duct the engine's waste products away from vehicle occupants.  Although this is one of functions of an exhaust system, the way these waste products exit the engine is essental to proper performance, fuel economy, and safety.  An automobile engine provides three processes:  combustion, mechanical drive, and exhaust.  If any one of these three prosseses is impeded, the condition of the engine will degrade.

An automobile exhaust has several purposes, the first of which is to channel the waste products of combustion out of the engine to allow it to continue to burn fuel and exit quickly from the system.  If engine exhaust is not permitted to immediately escape, the engine will quickly choke up and stall.

Another function is to dampen engine noise.  Exhaust gases leave the engine at extremely high pressure roughly proportional to engine load.  Engines will produce tremendous noise under load if no dampening devices were in place.  Thus to minimize this noise, the exhaust system lets the exhaust gases pass through metal plates and tubes called a muffler.  As the gases pass through the muffler the extreme pressures are reduced resulting in a quieter exhaust.

The final function of a modern exhaust system is to reduce the amount of pollutants in order to help protect our environment.  As an engine burns fuel it produces harmful pollutants such as hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides.  The exhaust system through the catalytic converter reduces these harmful pollutants by breaking them down into less harmful compounds.

1996 and newer passenger cars are also required by federal law to monitor the operation of the catalytic converter.  This is done by comparing the output of at least one upstream sensor, and one downstream sensor located in or behind the catalytic converter.  Vehicles may have only one or many catalytic converters.  Vehicles may also have as few as two or many more oxygen sensors.

The competant staff at Park Automotive is commited to repairing exhaust system failures at a price you can be comfortable with.  We go above and beyond our competition in many important ways:  We can custom bend exhaust pipes when needed,  we can install a small pipe section or individual flex pipe without major component replacement, we can also custom fit our own line of catalytic converters to keep costs down.  If you've gotten an estimate somewhere else and don't like what you see, just bring your car to us and compare what we can do for you.