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Originally Posted by immunity
.... As far as an OEM part I dont see spending twice the amount just for a muffler that might last a little bit longer. Would there be a 'perceptible' performance or sound difference between a regular oem part and non oem part?
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From my limited experience, YES! And my buddy, who worked on MB's for 30 years, advised me of this as well. He told me of all kinds of tricks he tried to restore the sound of his own and customer's cars (like stuffing coarse steel wool in the tailpipe, adding a resonator, etc.), and nothing would work as good as OEM.
I replaced the rear muffler on my old '75 450SE with a Bosal and the sound quality deteriorated 80%. Sounded like a pickup truck. Later, I had occasion to need a replacement for the intermediate muffler and opted for OEM, attempting to restore the lost sound (which is no sound, BTW), and it was a waste of $500.00CDN. My conclusion was that MB engineers the entire assembly for back pressure, sound, and of course, quality.
On the other hand, my current 380SE has a non-stock assembly that the local muffler shop put together for the previous owner. I'm not sure what they used, only that it isn't stock OEM in either shape or brand. It is however, very quiet and looks fine from the rear (there are 2 tailpipes with chrome tips, but only 1 actually functions.).
IMO, there is nothing worse than a Mercedes that sounds like a Chev Impala running a pair of dually Thrush glasspacks. And the price of that unit on EBay should be a good indicator of the internal quality of the baffles, which will sound bad and won't last, guaranteed. My 2 cents anyway.
