Exhaust tip causing rumbling noise?

So, bought this 2008 Tacoma used, 6 cyl, auto, years ago. It had a performance muffler on it which made way to much noise for my old self, and a couple years ago I had a shop replace it with a stock muffler, which made a huge difference.

However, I noticed, even back then, that it still had some "rumbling noise" to it, but wrote it off as engine cause noised. However, there is also a muffler chrome tip that I left on because I didn't think those made a difference, but looking at it now, I noticed it's actually welded on, and it reminds me of the old glass pack exhausts back in my younger days. The tip is pretty thick, it's not just a slide on, thin pipe piece of metal. It's a good half inch thick, and the inside looks like an old glass pack, or some kind of ceramic lining.

Anyway, after seeing conflicting opinions on if the thing could be causing noise, I ran it back to the muffler shop that I used a couple years ago. The guy told me that the tip wouldn't cause the noise, and he followed that up with "I could lie to you and make money removing it, but it wouldn't help, these models with the 6 cyl. can be causing more torque which is probably the issue and nothing to really be done about it" I thanked him and left, but I'm wondering what everyone here thinks.

The noise isn't all the time. It's mainly at low speed acceleration, and it's most prevalent at around steady speeds of appx 40 mph. It's usually not noticeable on the highway or when accelerating, but when I run the air condition, it is noticeable much more and also at highway speeds. Should I just get the thing cut off anyway, if nothing more than piece of mind?

I appreciate any thoughts.

 

Most of the aftermarket mufflers are louder and depending on how long its been on, quality of it, and how moist a climate the guts can start to fall apart inside.
Noise is called drone and usually due to the muffers design characteristic. But if you want to cut that end off go for it and see.

 

My theory. Car manufacturers will put effort into not having any droning resonating noises, maybe not so much on a tacoma, more likely in a luxury vehicle. This effort isn’t in aftermarket exhaust manufacturers. Maybe they won’t use crush bent pipes and maybe it’ll run better. It’ll most likely be louder.

I can appreciate a good sounding engine. What I don’t understand is the appeal of sounding like a hammer banging on a piece of metal.

Mine makes some low rpm droning noise, I’m sure it’s normal. Perhaps someone will chime in and say I bought this and solved it. If not, you could spend a whole lot of money on experimenting with different mufflers. Or if you could fit it under there do 3 mufflers. One straight back, make a u turn into the second, another u turn into the third and out the tip.