Replacement muffler
 

I'm in the process of replacing the front muffler on my W124 and after getting the old one off I noticed it was significantly heavier than the newer one. So I weighed them. The old muffler (minus the pipes, which I had to cut off) is 21.2 lbs. The new one, with pipes, is only 13.6. I've never noticed such a discrepancy before. Is the original equipment muffler that much more well built, or did it just accumulate a lot of combustion materials over the years?

I share your interest. I do not know but generally believe most of the replacement parts are not built with the quality, strength, or service life of the old parts.

Hope someone really knows but my money is on the lesser quality, lesser weight side.

nmi
 

nmi

cut your old 1 open. you'll find there's no "combustion leftovers", unless the cat convertor barfed into it. you might find there's metal missing from rust. you have a cheap replacement. interested to see how long it lasts. good luck, chuck.

That's what I'm thinking.

Cheaper, maybe, but only cheap compared to the M-B part. It's an Eberspacher from our host. I usually pop for the M-B part but may I decide to do the rear muffler as well. That's $1200 for both if I go the M-B route, and there's still no guarantee it will be the same quality as what was installed on the car back in the 90s, so I made a exception to my OEM-parts-only rule.

well, i'd pop for eberspacher myself. didn't know they were still available. used to sell vw air-cooled ebers by the ton back in the day.

did they move production to china? like lotsa other euro suppliers, that might explain it. still, cut yours open. i'm real curious now. good luck, chuck.

Replacement muffler
 

Last I spoke with my local MB dealer, they advised the OEM EB mufflers were NLA for the W123s. I found one from another retailer and holy crap was it HEAVY once I received it!! It was only $125 or so IIRC and I was pretty happy to find it.

Edit - missed that said 124 and not 123, oops

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