WARNING: Check Plug Holes at the Rear Corners of Your Van

[LostinTransit]

Over the summer while driving the van on our trips, we've been noticing a slight smell of exhaust fumes inside the van. It's sort of like when you or the shop changed the oil and split oil on the exhaust and you get the burning smell inside the van. The only way I was able to determine what it really was, is because I removed the cargo panel form the passenger side of the van to access an area where I was going to mount the spare tire mount on the side wall. At the far or most rear corner area of the van right at the door hinges. there should be 1 plug per side.. One was missing while the other was intact. The missing plug was allowing exhaust fumes inside the van. I've since plugged the hole, but we're still dealing with a small amount of exhaust fumes.

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In order to correct this, we're having to reroute the tailpipe which doesn't extend out the back of the van. Moreover it's up under the rear bumper and since I removed the full size spare tire, the exhaust simply circulates in that open area under the van instead of escaping out the back of the van. This has lead up to place small cameras on the van in order to find out if anyone is screwing with our van. otherwise, we'll be looking at replacing from the muffle back and adding not one but two tailpipes (one out each side) instead of straight out the back because we used the rear barn doors constantly.

We'll have more details on the reworking of the 2 tailpipes some time next spring.