So my car has an exhaust leak.
The guy I brought with me when I bought my car pointed that out and said it shouldn't be a big deal.
Issue is, he couldn't find it at the time, and I'm not sure of the best way to go about finding it would be (I'm pretty sure its coming from somewhere near the front of the car somehwhere near the engine, as that's where the strongest odor is.
I was reading online about using stethoscopes and such, but I'd have no idea what to listen for.
I found a brief article about using seafoam to locate the leak, and also read about it being a good idea to use it every 60k miles or so to clean out carbon deposits and other shit in your engine (My car has about 102k on it and I'm pretty sure it wasn't done, the last owner was an old widow).

Anyone ever done this before or have more info they can give me on seafoam and if I should use it or not?
Would be cool to kill two birds with one stone in this situation.
Also would like to know your recommended method of finding a leak, hopefully one without a stethoscope/rubber hose or an open flame lol.
Would also like to know the general difficulty of repairing a leak would be and if I could probably do it myself or would need a mechanic to do it ( I suppose this all depends on where the leak is coming from, so I may not get a solid answer until I figure that out).

I don't think the make/model matter too much for a somewhat generic issue like this, but its a 96 buick regal.

Thanks in advance guys.

-Follow exhaust leak sound

-Look for black sooty areas on the exhaust pipes, and especially at the connection points to the system (Exhaust manifold and it's gasket --> Catalytic converter(s) --> exhaust piping --> Muffler)

-Place hand in the area to be tested, with vehicle running. Feel for puffs of warm air. Obviously don't shove your hand into any moving parts, just "feel the air".

-If you say you smell it most in the engine compartment, I'd be willing to bet it's a bad exhaust manifold gasket, or something leading to that effect.


-Also, if you have a shop vac, you could always turn it to "blow" and stick the nozzle in the end of your exhaust, and feel around the pipe for pin holes, or bad gaskets.


There are only so many places it could be leaking from. Start eliminating the potential locations.

ask someone to block the exhaust pipe and check for leak

just listen....


if you cant hear it and find it, you shouldn't be trying to fix it

its not hard, just like andy said

look at all the seams/where metal connects together and you should find it



also seafoam works well, I use it, if you do make sure you change your plugs after, they can/will be fouled

also let your neighbors know so the fire department dosent show up

Depending on where it is, it can be very hard.
After i got 1 exhaust leak fixed, another one popped up. So i go back to the shop to say wft. And they cant find it, so this intrigues me, so me and a buddy try to find it, no luck. Brought it to one more shop, none of us can find it. but 100% its there, we can all hear it.
After i did some reading, the stock header gets warped with alot of these cars and creats a pinhole leak along side it. We all did the touch and feel to try and find it, so adding a seafoam or something along those lines SHOULD find it.

This post was edited by IB0T on Aug 23 2013 10:30am

if you can hear it then you need to use methods other than just your eyes


screw driver up to the ear touched to the header at each cylinder, you can also do the same thing on valve covers to listen for lifters, rockers, valves

prob headers.

Drive your car into a pool while its running and look for bubbles.

Gotta hook up the snorkel first ofc

stick your weewee into the pipes, starting from the headers, close your eyes and concentrate, wait for that air to tickle your pickle.


oh and make sure the car is running, cant tell you how many times people try this and the cars off, what noobs lol.