Blocked Exhaust - Damage

My girlfriend came to start her car this moring and whilst she was deicing the car she noticed something was shoved up the exhaust pipe. Just wanted to know if she had turned the engine on and drove off, would it have damage the engine?

Depends how well it was blocked, most of the stuff tends to shoot out the back with a huge racket...

...so I am told.

its unllikley it would start the engine would have choked up and stoped running, but with the blockage cleared it is likley it would have been fine.

what was the blokckage?

as above it should have stalled if blocked very well

what was stuffed up there then, was it a astra by any chance??

[dizzyblonde]

My dad has 'heard' of a couple of spuds being stuffed in folks pipes when he was a youngster...don't half make a big bang!
..wonder if they turn to instant mash too

[yorkie_chris]

Doubt it will have done any harm unless exhaust was already knackered.

Speaking of amusing bangs n stuff.... a mate of mine used the killswitch to get the baffle out of his 929-fighter. That was amusing.... It flew halfway across squires car park.

should be fine, i had some wire wool in my exhaust, nice and quiet for the MOT, and then a pop, out it goes!

it'll raise the pressure in the system a lot, but almost any blockage will be blown out long before any joints crack. also, pretty much all cat converters have spring loaded seals on one end, an overly high back pressure may blow through the gasket but that doesn't take more then 5 mins to fix.
however, if the car is turbocharged you may damage the vanes and bearings?

Apparently it was some sort of fruit, she said it looked like a plum.

should be fine! used to turn each others bikes off by holding the exhaust... Quite funny when done at the traffic lights..