Kwik fit will do a cheapo job perfectly adequately imo. They also replaced a brand new one immediately with no questions asked when I wasn’t happy with the actual item (not their fitting).
Exhausts are easy to fit but you do need to do a lot of crawling about under the car, surely?
Kwik fit will replace your exhaust with the wrong one, try to convince you it’s the right one, let you drive off with it and have problems for months, insist they legally have to replace perfectly good brake pads and discs before you leave, even re-fitting it [the exhaust] badly and finally refuse to replace it as youve used it (*assuming you’re someone who doesn’t know about cars). Apparently (not my experience, a friend of mine recanting the tale).
They’ll also re-gas your air-con, claim to have checked it for leaks and used leak detecting dye, left it for hours running on the machine. They argue about a refund, be unable to show you where it’s leaked from with their dye, when you bring it back 2 miles later with no gas in it.
As for a a lot of crawling about on the floor – define “a lot”?! Roll under, find clamp bolts or flanges, undo, unhook exhaust from rubbers, hook new one up,re-fit or replace bolts, check it’s all lined up and nip it up. What, 15 minutes. 20 if your bolts have sheared. An hour if you made a mistake and forgot to get spare clamps/bolts and have to go drive for them.
How long for stainless and how much more are they than mild steel usually?
A good quality stainless system will last longer than the car does. But it might cost more than you like. I got mine done, on the cheap, for £300 – a full custom system from turbo back to the tail. Being stainless it’ll never rust, unless they’re cheap on the internal baffling etc and use mild steel.
Identify which bit has failed, you can happily replace sections. Mid-section on my peugeot was £22, back box was £35ish IIRC. Mid and front sections rarely fail as they get hotter quicker, rears tend to rust away as they gather more condensation.
