I hear a tin can?

Every once in a while, I hear a sound coming from under my car, possibly the passenger side, that sounds like I am pulling a tin can around. It only lasts about 3 seconds. Sometimes I’ll hear it when sitting at a red light, or accelerating from a complete stop. Then the sound disappears. This doesn’t happen all the time, but I do feel like I’m hearing it more often as time is going on.

I did a little research online, and some say it could be a rock under my heat panel, but that seems too easy.

I don’t have any issues with shifting gears or accelerating. thank you for any suggestions!
~Sarah 2000 GMC JIMMY 4x4

Could be a rock that got into the wheel somewhere Sarah, or,. more likely it may be the cat heat shield has come loose and is rattling. Ask your mechanic to check for those first probably.

Have a mechanic put your car on a lift and shake the exhaust system. I’ll bet you can track down the problem. I had a 1985 Ford Tempo with the same problem. There was something rattling around in the muffler. The problem went away for a while and then came back. Again, there was something in the muffler. The exhaust shop replaced the muffler for free the second time, but surmised that probably a pellet from the catalytic converter had gotten into the muffler and said I would not get another free muffler. I didn’t own the car much longer because my wife didn’t like it, so I never did know if the catalytic converter was going bad and losing its pellets.