I have myself a 1999 limited that has developed an exhaust leak in the muffler. It's about the size of a dollar coin and I have been thinking of replacing it for something with a bit more sound.

I was looking at the Flowmaster 40 and 50 series but I do not want anything too loud. I commute 80 miles everyday on the highway and the road noise already drives me crazy so I don't want to add any droning.

Anyone have experience with either of these mufflers? I saw a couple of posts that were quite a few years old about them. I have also looked at an 18" magnaflow, but I have read some conflicting accounts about the quality.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

I'm also interested to see where this thread goes.

Man I'd stick with something Quite and OEMish, what does your muffler guy offer up? Why not a good used one?

I just replaced my whole exhaust excluding the crossover pipe and manifolds. I used the eBay/amazon northern exhaust and so far really like it, I think it was something like $135 for the muffler and tail pipe section

It’s not very loud though, almost completely silent. I previously had a thrush turbo muffler and it was junk, something came loose inside it within a few days and it rattled constantly

When I went through this with my '97 T100 (same 3.4l engine), I bought the Bosal knock-off of the OEM on Amazon. Just looked it up, $135 shipped and it was a Direct replacement. Minutes of DIY time to replace. I was very happy with it, but sold the truck so no clue on longevity.

I think it was close to OE quiet, but had a massively rusted OE muffler on there so who knows.

Flowmaster is literally about as loud of a brand as you can get!

I know cell phone quality sucks, but try youtube for ideas. If a manufacturer offers several products, stick to the "OE quality" or "Touring" models. They will be still be louder than stock though. Personally, I have used Borla and Magnaflow. Magnaflows sound good but I had one fall apart on me and rattle. My Borla muffler sounds great, Borla actually makes a cat-back system though so I knew what I was getting. I only install straight-through design mufflers though for performance reasons. I've heard "racing" mufflers and Flowmasters on 4Runners and it just makes them raspy and obnoxious. Plus we have terrible sound dampening so you'll hear it drone in the cab real bad.

Personally, I like a deeper, more subtle tone than flatulent and loud like most people pick for mufflers these days. Loud is not better, it's just loud.

I installed a SS Walker qiet flow muffler and tailpipe from RockAuto for $250.00 about two and a half years ago. Pretty close to stock sound and still going strong.

I bought the NAPA alumized steel cat back 5 or so years ago and it still isn’t rusting yet.


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I have this one as well and it’s pretty close to stock sound. But I heard reviews the flanges are not SS and rust out before the muffler. Either way I had the muffler shop cut welded it on

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Agreed! My OEM muffler was rusting out on both ends and the baffle inside started to go to pieces and it sounded like dog sh!t. I ended up getting the Stainless steel northeastern exhaust for $180 shipped to my door. Had to buy fasteners for the flanges but it was like $2? (big deal). Also ended up replacing the downstream o2 sensor as well with a OEM denso. Exhaust mounted up perfectly being aftermarket. No fighting anything to fit or trying to "persuade"
it into place. Honestly by the time you pay labor to have just a muffler welded in your gonna be close to just replacing the whole system yourself! If you do have rust I highly recommend a sawzall or an angle grinder to cut out the old exhaust. Just watch out for the exhaust hangers and floorboard etc.
Good luck with whatever you decide!

I replaced my blown out stock muffler with a Walker Quiet-Flow back in Sept 2015. My main concern was drone and noise since I also have a long highway commute. No highway drone, slightly deeper tone at idle. The hangers, flanges, and tubing didn't appear to be stainless, just the muffler...I painted those areas with high-temp engine paint.

Do you have Federal or California type emissions? California type has two catalytic converters, Federal has one. Federal version costs more ($180 range @ amazon) than the California versions ($130 range @ amazon).





If you're going to DIY and have rusty hardware, have several new sawzall blades handy, the stock bolts were tough to remove. I went to a local hardware store for new nuts and bolts.

I’m running flowmaster 40

I install a lot of Walker Quiet Flow SS mufflers. The muffler shell at the very least is stainless steel, they have a lifetime warranty and are about stock quiet. I personally have used the Bosal muffler and pipe assembly plus tail pipe twice on my 4Runner in about 9 years. My tail pipe is broken off now and when the muffler goes I'm going with a Borla cat back system.

Im running a borla, and have since 2015. Had to get it wielded on, and the exhaust shop that did it sells magnaflow. He said the borla was gonna be real loud. Well guess he did not have much experience with Borla, as when he was done and started it up he said he was surprised how quiet it was ( for a free flow)

I don't think it is too loud, it is louder than stock, but does not bother me

A loud 4Runner isn't cool. Get yourself a stock replacement. Just loud enough for people to realize there's a 4Runner pulling up, but not loud enough to make people with cars that deserve to be loud laugh at you.