I have an annoying rattle coming from underneath my car, recently got an oil change from the dealer, and they diagnosed that my heat shield is rotting, so I need to get it replaced, quoted $340 for the job. Anyone know how I should go about fixing this? I tried even looking up the part for a new heat shield but I can't find it.

 

 

Did you have any luck fixing this? I think I have the same problem

 

Buy a new heat shield and replace it...??

 

Soooo helpful thank you so much that didn't even cross my mind captain obvious. Maybe I should clarify my question...have you had this problem? What is involved in the replacement? Could I just remove the shield and not replace it? Please do tell. You seem to be an exhaust expert I have never worked on that area of a vehicle. THANK YOU!

 

Well bossman, you gotta check and make sure the heat shield is indeed the culprit to your rattle. If so, then buy 6 and 7 and the applicable bolts and replace them. Don't buy them before you go and visually check under the car though.

 

I can reproduce the noise by shaking the exhaust from the rear of the car and it makes the noise when cold or taking a right turn but when looking at the shield from below I cannot replicate the noise or see any reason why it would be making the noise. Kind of leaning towards just removing the cat altogether.

 

hmm.... well if that's the case, it MAY be the element in the cat itself (or maybe muffler along the exhaust) that has been knocked loose (read:broken) and is rattling around inside the cat itself. do you have a lift or can jack up the car enough to get under and shake the cat itself



Or take it as a great excuse to get a new exhaust

 

If I'm looking at the diagram right, 19 is the large heat shield directly above the muffler. Mine is rotted out around one on the holes where it is bolted on (driver side rear I think). Not making noise yet, but I'm guessing a matter of time. Should not be too difficult to replace. Did you check that area?

 

Well, I'm fairly certain the noise is coming from the cat area however I can replicate the noise by shaking the exhaust from the pass side exit but not on the drivers side exhaust exit. Gonna have to do some more thorough investigating when its not 10 degrees out. The noise pops out just inoften enough to not bother me all that bad. Just kinda embarrassing.

 

just take it off and leave it off. No need to spend good money on it.

 

I haven't looked to see what that heat shield has near it but that is the preferred method lol.

 

If you don't have a lift, you can get a $20 set of ramps and just back up on them. That should give you all the clearance you need under the car to figure out what's going on.

 

ditch the stock down pipe for an RV-6 "race" down pipe. also have flash pro and kill the second O2 sensor and boom your good to go. no pesky heat shields to rattle and MORE POWER!!! binford 9000 style

 

^^^I love living in California for so many reasons. Wishing I could do cool mods like this however, is not one them. Grrrr.....

 

My 2009 RDX had the problem with the muffler heat shield (#19) rotting off around all four bolts. It was completely loose before I noticed the rattle. I simply removed the four bolts (use some penetrant otherwise the rusted bolts may break off), then added a large washer to each bolt and screwed them back in. The thin, cheap material used to make the heat shield degraded over time, then cracked and eventually broke out around the bolts. That will not happen with the large washers added. My repair cost was about 75 cents.

 

I wouldn't remove heat shields from the catalytic converters inside the engine bay, but I don't feel that the muffler heat shields are critical. Of course, I'm not an engineer and I'd like to think there's a good reason for them. However, if you take an IR thermometer and take temps of the mufflers, you'll find they never get very hot. I mean, they get hot enough to burn skin, but I highly doubt they have an effect on any components whereas the cats get upwards of 1500F.

I removed the heat shields on both my 3G and 4G TL, both of which have gone over 70K miles with no shield. So far, no adverse effects.

 

Do you have the URL to this website?