Heat shield fell off...

[komichal]

Hi folks,
My Yaris 2007 hatchback 1.3 64kW started to rattle from beneath the car.
A quick inspection on the road showed that a heat shield above the center part of the exhaust piping shaked off and now holds on one bolt only, rest lying on the exhaust and rattling.

Once I put my hand to the heat shield it fell off completely. I have attached a picture (not mine) to indicate the exact shield that is now gone...



I have visited a few car services/garages around and all the guys looked at me like I was some sort of freak, telling "No need to have this one on the car. Waste of money to buy it and to replace it."

Then I called an authorized Toyota service center and their reaction was something like "if the shield would not needed then Toyota would not have mounted it there". And they recommended replacing with a new one which should take some 150 USD incl. work. Quite a lot of money I think; unfortunately the old heatshield cannot be reaused, it is too thin around the bolt holes so I guess a big washer would not help.

Now I am wondering how dangerous it is to drive without that heatshield. Will my car catch fire? Will the temperature in cabin just rise by 0.1 Celsius? Will some other parts of car get corrosion/wear out faster because of excessive heat? Occasionally I had to park on high dry grass and the grass never caught fire; I guess the car cannot catch fire too...

Thanks for any thoughts on this.

[dragoonmc]

Heat shield is there to prevent the heat getting into the passenger compartment. Not sure how much it will effect you on this one. Probably a bigger deal in city traffic rather than highway


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[WeeYari]

Replace? Bah!

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[tmontague]

fwiw, I ripped mine off my car when I did my engine swap to make future replacement of the shifter cables much easier. I just sprayed the whole tunnel with Krown anti rust coating to protect the paint.

Zero issue, the only thing I can notice is the carpet that sits on the tunnel gets warm but even in traffic in summer it is not too bad. Save you $ can leave it be

[zoidberg444]

I wouldn't worry about it mate.

Several parts of mine have fallen off. Most it it fell off between 2012 and 2014 or i ripped it off because it started rattling. I rarely sit or crawl along in city traffic. The air flow under the car should keep it cool. I've never noticed increased heat transfer to the cabin.

Its a silly design because you have steel bolts into a steel chassis that secure and aluminum plate. Galvanic corrosion just eats the area around the bolt and they come loose. I think they would be better off with some sort of plastic fixing. They might last longer.