If you’re XC90 is as old as mine is (12 years and still going strong) and you’re on your original exhaust (like me), there’s a good chance that your exhaust is starting to rust. This tends to happen more in areas that put salt on their roads, which doesn’t help slow down the corrosion process – in fact, it speeds it up. So don’t be surprised when your exhaust hangers, which are welded to your tail pipe and supported by two rubber pieces, rust and get disconnected from the pipe. And if somebody tells you that, because your exhaust hangers are broke, you need an entire new exhaust – read this first.
It started with some very strange clunking coming from the rear of my 2004 XC90 2.5T. The sound made it feel like something was bouncing underneath the car. After getting the Volvo home and in a place where I could inspect it, I found this:
BOTH of the exhaust hangers had rusted and broken at the joint where they meet the exhaust pipe. This left it held up by the muffler hanger and the metal piece that crosses under the exhaust closer to the front of the SUV.
The question at this point was, what do I do about the problem? Fortunately, I have some really (REALLY) smart people whom I can turn to when I get in a jam. Both assured me that fix was both cheap and simple and did not involve buying a whole new exhaust for my XC90.
Introducing Volvo part #30681638 – an exhaust hanger for the S70, C70 and V70 that works wonderfully well on the XC90 2.5T. You may want to bend the arms slightly to get the to hang a bit better but I didn’t and so far (it’s been over a year) the exhaust clamp has held up beautifully.
Installing the hanger is pretty easy. Get the old hanger pieces out of the way – toss them out. If only one is broken, break off the second. That’s what I had to do. Open the circular part of the new hanger (this is probably the hardest part). Get it around the hanger and clamped down loosely with the bolt (check that – THIS is the hardest part). Use vice grips or a big-ish c-clamp to hold the ends together. Get the exhaust clamp in a spot where you know you’ll be able to get the arms into the rubber receivers. Hook ’em in the rubber parts and tighten down the clamp.
