98 E300TD exhaust...expensive
 

My muffler is rattling loudly and it seems to be something loose in the muffler itself. I called the dealer and the box is over $600. I'm wondering if a box from a gas w210 would work. I have seen lots of them at pick your part but never a diesel. As far as I can tell the boxes look the same except that the gas has two pipes in, and the diesel has one, but I can't see why the muffler guy can't make me a union mating that 2 pipes into one. Am I missing anything?

I do not now what the price conversion would be but I had a rear box for my 97 E300td from Ebay from Germany.
The seller was Gerlach and it came with all fittings (clamps brackets and rubbers) to my door in the Uk total cost £75.

Maybe worth a look

I did a quick check and its around $130 and then the freight

Just go to a reputable custom exhaust shop...they will do a great job and you will save a bunch of money.

Thanks for the advise. I did end up ordering one from eBay.de and with shipping it came to just over $200 which seemed very fair. My cat is also bad(probably took out the muffler) and I really not want to replace it. If I gut it, will anything happen with my smog test? They don't do tail pipe emissions in California, just obd2.

In my experience with muffler places(we have 200/300tdi engine swaps regularly in rover defenders) they are lazy and use whatever is around/available. The factory down-pipes are 2 3/8" for a reason, forced induction motors need to be able to flow the spent gases out readily. But they use crush bent 2" pipe which really restricts the flow and power. My butt Dyno can feel it from open down pipe to full pea shooter exhaust.

If you don't specify what you want(2.5" crush bent I think would suffice in this instance) then you never know what you will get with these type of places. Factory benz pipes are not crush bent for a reason...

I cut mine off, makes a nice exhaust note :D

The only outward sign of gutting the cat will be a change in the aroma of the exhaust. It won't set any codes.