An 8 degree-of-freedom (DOF) vehicle model is established to investigate the vertical vibration characteristics of an exhaust system excited by road surface inputs. The simplification of an exhaust system relevant to the vehicle model is discussed in detail, including the steps of exhaust modal analysis, definition of mass element, exhaust partitioning, parameter acquisition, and simplified exhaust validation. The vehicle model is developed based on a half-vehicle model, simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK, and validated by comparing the simulation and experiment on various road profiles. Results show that the vehicle model effectively represents the dynamics of the vehicle characteristic in vertical vibration.