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Question:

Can a car exhaust freeze?

Before you judge me this was told to a friend of mine about her Lancer. She was told not to buy one because the Lancer cannot stand up to Canadian winters and the exhaust would freeze solid which I didn‘t even think was possible. However I am not anywhere close to knowing anything about cars so I thought I would toss this out to people who do know.Are there any issues with the Lancer‘s exhaust during the cold? According to her the bigwig‘s in California refuse to understand how cold our winters can get. Not that bad in my opinion.Thanks!

Answer:

I don't think there is anything about a Lancer that would make the exhaust especially susceptible to freezing . However, when I moved to Flagstaff I was warned by the man I replaced at work that occasionally a car that had trouble starting when cold would sputter once and then not start again in very cold weather. Terry told me with a straight face, and he is plenty experienced, that if the plugs fire only a couple of times and then the engine stalls the water produced by the combustion would freeze on the still-cold plugs and the engine would not start until the plugs were thawed or changed. I haven't seen it myself in ten winters.
If an exhaust gets filled with water it can freeze but it is really really hard to fill it with water. It gets cold enough in Canada to freeze but never heard of Lancer or any car exhaust freezing. So No
The exhaust system is essentially just a steel pipe that takes the burnt gas fumes(exhaust) out of the motor so unless theres water or any other liquid inside the exhaust pipes its not freezing and if it were frozen the exhaust temperatures are very hot and would melt the water. Ever seen steam coming out of a car when its cold? Thats how it happens

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