jsusanka

have a 2007 mazda 3s sedan

was wondering when we bought the car the salesman told us the exhaust is stainless steel.

was getting an oil change the other day and the mazda mechanic said it isn't.

does anyboyd know for sure?

thanks in advance

djs2571

ha, no it's not stainless... mine has rust from the flex pipe in the front all the way back. Though there is a resonator and the muffler that appear to be corrosion free - that is except where there are welds to the rest of the pipes.

I just put on a ceramic coating though, to keep it from rusting away, and i'm curious how it will hold up when its wet / cold out.

Maz94Protege

only stainless if you install it, Do you somehow have a Mazdaspeed muffler? or Borla/etc? Only way i could think..... but all factory mufflers and pipes are steel/aluminum and with northern winters...rust through quickly

djs2571

It's the stock exhaust, and looking again the resonator is what looks stainless, and the muffler is very minimally rusted - the pipes on the other hand are corroded per normal aluminzed steel or whatever they call it.
As for ceramic coating, I used cotronix 940HT which I knew had the wrong thermal expansion, and over the winter it mostly flaked off. I'm sure there's a better coating to use but it's expensive to do, and brittle as well. So i'd say to weld on stainless parts if you really want to have a long lasting system. Something like McMaster # 4378K79 or 4378K81 would be a good option, think i'll keep that in mind for when mine rusts away.