2002 Audi A4 help

13CMILLER24

MEMBER
2002 AUDI A4
1.8L
4 CYL
TURBO
AWD
MANUAL

Silly question doubt I'll get any unbiased answers since audi mechanics are incline to what aufi recommends here my question please just answer truthfully I am cutting both of my mufflers off of my 1.8th 02 audi b6 quattro and want to straight pipe just from where the other mufflers connected so maybe 2ft of straigjt pipe keeping all resonators and cats can I do this without the car loosing power or not running correctly a check engine that doesn't affect the cars performance doesn't matter because I don't have emmisions so to sum it up can I cut my mufflers out and put 3in pipes as mufflers with no performance issues

1 Reply

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
33,916 POSTS

You aren't going to enjoy the noise on long trips, and you sure won't win the appreciation of your neighbors, but as long as you keep the catalytic converters and all of the oxygen sensors, there shouldn't be a problem with the Engine Computer. The rear oxygen sensors monitor the efficiency of the catalytic converters. Based on what they report, disabling anything related to them will set diagnostic fault codes and turn on the Check Engine light.

There's two problems with driving with the Check Engine light on. First, if another problem develops that would also turn the light on, you'll never know since the light is already on. That can turn a minor problem into a very expensive one if it is unwittingly ignored. Second, the Engine Computer compares a number of sensor readings and operating conditions to each other to, in part, determine when there's a problem. If there's already a diagnostic fault code set for something that's used for comparison, other tests that use that information may be suspended. The cause of a running problem could go undetected, and without the fault code that would have been set, there's almost no way to know where to start looking.