Exhaust manifold damaged by corrosion

[shepd]

Heat shields fall off of many, many cars all the time with typically zero exciting results. However, they are typically there to deal with edge cases (parking over tall dry grass, towing heavy loads long distances during the summer, crazy people doing parking lot donuts, etc, etc).

I'm not saying to remove it, but if it's like any other heat shield I've seen, if it fell off, you'd never even know unless you happen to be an edge case (in which case, well, the results could range from a bad smell, to something melting, to, rarely, fire).

The exhaust manifold heat shield was missing from two of my previous vehicles (Corolla and a Crown Vic--both sides for that car). Nothing ever came of it, even for the years I drove them.

Of course, the right thing to do is replace them. I should probably re-paint the scratches on my car, too...