How important is this exhaust heat shield
 

Starting from the exhaust tips back, I've got:

Tips

pipe

Muffler

connecting pipe

Small catalytic converter (?)

...

On top of that small catalytic converter is a "cover plate" or heat shield.

On mine is was rattling something fierce on the driver's side. I was draining the trans fluid this morning and decided to check it out - and while fiddling with it, it came completely loose so I took it off and looked around.

Directly above it and lining the chassis looks like a whole underbody heat shield protecting the rear boot from cat-converter heat. Looking around, the shield only really protected the underbody area. There's no electronics or wiring it was shielding - no rubber of any sort.

So I'm wondering: is this cover plate/heat shield even necessary? Do I need to re-attach it? Seems to me I can just call this 'fixed' and move on :)

Any thoughts?

Joe

I went out and looked at my car to compare and if it were me, I'd re-install the cat heat shield. Those cat's get mighty warm and if your rear trunk is anything like mine, you could roast a pig in there most days so I'd want to keep as much of the heat shielding and protection in place as possible.

Also, I'd worry that the underbody heat shield may not have been designed for the direct heat from the cat (thus the reason for the all-metal heat shield) and might break down over time.

But then again, you might be fine without the heat shield, hard to know for sure.