Brought my car into the dealer for the t-belt and head gasket maintenance. After leaving the lot, the car was making a new noise that it had not been making before. Somewhat of a deep creeking sound whenever the car would make a change in momentum… when first hitting the gas, hitting the break, slowly turning at parking lot speeds… Brought it back in and they said it would be a sway bar issue/ bushing issue most likely. So thats all good and they are checking it out today.
But - yesterday morning (320 miles after the service) this appeared to fall off the bottom of the car while driving and voila the noise is gone. Any chances this is ACTUALLY something from the bottom of the car? And not something I had not seen in the road and ran over it causing a sound similar to something falling off the car? Just a coincidence the noise is gone? Car is at dealer today with the metal piece…
That is a heat shield for some place on the exhaust.
It should be bolted back up to protect your floor from the excessive heat of the catalytic converter. The dealer will want to order a new one, but many can be reattached with fender washers. Though in the picture it looks like those holes are rotted away beyond using a fender washer.
I was thinking too that it looks as if it’s been flattened by more than one car.
If @swhtkr is sure it didn’t get run over by a few cars behind her…then I doubt that it is from her car.
Besides those things will usually make such a racket vibrating, until you get it looked at, she likely would have had it looked at weeks before.
But then you see them on the roadway all the time. So someone ignored it.
