I have a 02 A4 3.0.

The car has always had a very slight exhaust tick on the passenger side. It is up near the cat, you can hear it but thats it.

It is not the coupler or the flex pipe that is down under the car. Well a few days ago it turned into a full exhaust leak.

I've heard bad things about getting the exhaust out of these cars, not sure if its the cat, manifold, etc.

Is there a common area for them? Just turned 172k and its a Michigan car so lots of road salt. You can hear it clearly in the wheel well but there is so much stuff up there who knows where its coming from with the sound bouncing around.

Can the manifolds come out the bottom? I've taken them out of a 2.7 before but they sit much farther down because of the turbo's.

I'm hoping its a little spot or something I can see and get a welder up there to seal it but most likely not

I don't want to start tearing the car apart to find out it won't come out due to a cat or something like that.