Fitting A New Exhaust

[tim-spam]

I've just had the centre box on my 2002 TDI fail just where the pipe enters the box. The rear box has also failed and this was easy to remove. However, in order to remove the centre box, I had to cut off the rear pipe so that it could be pulled out from the rear. I'm hoping that this was because of the pipe between the centre box and the catalyst still being in position, but I'm not sure.

 

Has anyone else replaced an exhaust on a facelift TDI, and is it possible to fit the centre box section without either cutting the pipe and re-joining it or dropping the rear subframe?

 

I'm going to fit it anyway, so will find out myself, but it would be good to know in advance what sort of job it's likely to be.

 

Thanks.