Exhaust leak

Ok, My riv has aquired an exhaust leak, it seems really close to the rear exhaust manifold, though I've yet to find out if its a cracked manifold, a bad gasket or whatever, is it going to be very harmful to continue to drive the car before getting this seen to?

also.. car is incredibly hard to steer at low speeds, almost manual steer-feeling.

Any thoughts?

its not harmfull for car to drive if the exhaust is not leaking much..it will make louder noise...if it leaks much it can be bad for fuel economy..cos it will not make not enogh back pressure to the engine..
sometimes it will go black on the area where the exhaust leaks.

steering hard? did you change your tyres for wider ones?
or maybe not enaf oil in power steerin system, should check it.

The biggest threat from the exhaust leak is to you, physically. Find the leak and fix it as soon as you can.

jamie wrote:

also.. car is incredibly hard to steer at low speeds, almost manual steer-feeling.

Any thoughts?

If the two wire connector on the magna-steer ( on top of the steering rack) becomes disconnected it will feel like manual steering.
I know because i disconnected mine to troubleshoot a possible problem.
Or if the Magna-Steer system fails it will do the same thing.
It seems contrary to what the magna-steer is supposed to do, but that is the way the car / steering reacts to a magna-steer inop problem.

Can also be a pump problem, but they usually make a lot of noise when they go bad.

You will need to troubleshoot the possible magna-steer problem per the FSM (too lengthy to do here) and replace steering rack if it is not a wiring or controller issue or live with it as is, it won't hurt anything.

Thanks for the feedback.

The leak seems very close to, or possibly even the rear exhaust manifold. I can't tell if the manifold is cracked or if its just a gasket, but i've been warned that driving it could cause damage to the valves if it is the manifold that has failed.

As far as the steering goes, I'm concerned for the pump, as I've just repaired a broken belt tensioner, prior to that, the pump could have been on greater strain.

Quote :

i've been warned that driving it could cause damage to the valves if it is the manifold that has failed.

I don't think burnt valves would likely happen under normal driving conditions. A rich A/F mix normally burns cooler than a lean mix - up to a point. But what does happen is the extra air drawn into the exhaust stream can fool the O2 sensor into thinking the engine is running lean, so it adds extra fuel. This will kill fuel economy, and could ruin your cat converter quickly.