Exhaust & Warranty

I want to add aftermarket mufflers and/or headers to my '03 996. Dealer says mufflers should be ok, but headers probably aren't. I noticed someone on here was denied new O2 sensors due to different mufflers. Does anybody have any "real" experience with aftermarket exhaust and warranty? In addition how much potential (if any) is there for "issues" such as check engine light etc.? Thanks!

I am the person who lost warranty coverage on my car. The primary problem was a check engine light that the dealer could not find the cause of. Once they found I had a piggy-back chip, they refused to do the work under warranty, claiming the chip caused the car to run lean, overheat the exhaust gas, and melt a breather tube. This was all total BS but when I appealed it to the zone rep, he simply talked to the dealer and voided my powertrain warranty completely. If you read the warranty exclusion carefully they can deny coverage for any mods to the engine and also for any kind of track use. Most dealers recognize that many Porsche buyers are enthusiasts and don't hassle you. But if they are facing a big repair bill (in my case it was over $2K) they can always fall back to the exclusions and deny coverage. In the case of headers and exhaust, that is downstream from everything on the engine except the cats. So if you have a cat burn out or an O2 sensor fail, they could deny for that, and in fact this happened to me. But if the problem was internal or something in the intake track, they couldn't deny coverage for just having exhaust. My point on the earlier post was that the HP gains are so minimal, why spend the money, go through the hassle, and then take the risk of having your warranty voided to boot? There is really not much in terms of bolt on mods that are going to get significant HP out of the 3.6 or 3.4 996 engines. Karl

Thanks for the info., sounds grim. I'm mostly looking for an improvement in sound. Any performance gains would be welcome but I know there isn't much to offer with an exhaust. I've seen some claims between 5-40 hp depending on mufflers or headers or both. Sounds like a lot to me on the high end. I figured if I could just do mufflers for the sound I would be happy.

I don't think any decent dealer would hassle you on warranty claims for replacing just the exhaust. I think as long as you recognize that you're doing it for the sound and not for HP gain, it will be fine. If someone is claiming anything more than a 10 HP increase by bolting on a different exhaust, ask them if they are willing to give you your money back if the dyno shows less than that. My guess is they will start backpedaling on their claims very quickly. Karl

I'll research the claims. So do you think I would be farily free of "check engine light" stuff with either the muffler and/or the header package. I feel safer with just the mufflers but from I what I read, the sound gets even better with the headers. Also I saw the Porsche factory exhaust for $1,900 I believe in the Rennlist store? That is much cheaper than what the dealer wanted ($3000 installed and they came down $700!) so maybe that would be the best all around way to go. Otherwise I was looking at a GHL setup. Mufflers $845 Headers $1147 Total $1912.oo

It may have something to do with the quality of some aftermarket mufflers. My Ruf is as heavy and more solid than the stock exhaust, never had a CEL related to the exhaust.

Lance, I haven't heard of anyone have check engine light from just replacing exhaust and/or headers. However, if you get into the 100 cell sport cats, you definitely can get a CEL. Also, mods to the intake system seem to have a tendency to generate CELs. If you stay away from those areas, you should be fine. Karl