Krummers at the Volvo 850: New flex tube or whole Krummer?

Good evening, I’m a newcomer here, because I have a great impression of your competence. After my Lambda light flashed up recently, we found out in the workshop that the flex tube is leaking and I hope that this is the only reason for it. Since I don’t want to invest as much money in my car (and can), I would like to do as much as possible. 1.At Skandix, a new cracker with flex tube costs about 110€. I trust in the crusher exchange with my father. Only I ask myself, is the end of the flex tube welded to the KAT again, or is there another intended connection? At the welding process, it would then be hapern during self-assembly. 2.The workshop offered to weld a new flex tube for 170€. That seems quite a lot to me, or? 3. Can I determine, without expanding the cracker, whether it might have a crack? In this case, of course, I would choose variant 1. A lot of text, but I hope that I have brought it all over intelligibly.