Hi - As I pulled away from my driveway today, this dropped off the undercarriage. I would appreciate any advice on whether I should cancel my road trip this weekend and head to the garage or whether I can take my time because it is just a shield or something. The holes, presumably for screws or similar, certainly look corroded. Full disclosure: I am not a mechanic. Thank you!
Heat Shield - Toyota (58153-47030) | OEPartsQuick It might be part 9, in front, or part 10, or part 11, in back. I would look to see which are missing.
Good catch, @lewisjohn , if you had lost it on the road you might not have noticed anything until you smelled your carpet starting to burn. My vote is for part #11 in @JimboPalmer 's diagram. If I were in your place, I'd consider taking the heat shield to a local garage, maybe a muffler shop, to see what they say. Maybe they can quickly secure it in place so you can take your trip this weekend.
Any shop with a lift can fix this fast. Exhaust heat shields fall off lots of cars, and often the mount holes are torn out so they can't be reattached the same way. Enter bailing wire. Probably its last remaining completely legitimate role in automotive repair. If they do it right there won't be any rattles.
I would go have that checked and re-attached before a long road trip. From the diagram, and the picture, it seems to look more like part 11, but conversely seems to have a 9 embossed on it? But any repair shop worth their salt should be able to know immediately. My additional concern is that there have been reports of Catalytic Converters being stolen. I believe there was a post from a Prius Chat participant about his converter being stolen in London. I would want my entire exhaust system visually inspected to make sure that part just fell off. Make sure no other parts are missing, and/or coming loose. Good Luck. Hopefully it is just that singular part, and simply an action of wear and time.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. It does look more like part 11. Safety first, I will head to a garage in the first instance...
That rear exhaust heat shield dropped off my gen2 at 40,000 miles, they also replaced the exhaust manifold donut, it was loud, independent shop, quiet on the way out.
You might get away with using oversized washers, to bridge the torn holes. or even a short piece of pipe hanging strap, in a pinch. Stainless steel oversized washers would be best. The other question would be are any or all of the mounting bolts missing. I'd speculate they're 6mm (10 mm socket size), screwing into weld-nuts on the body. At the bottom of OP's picture it looks like an inch or two is torn off: maybe small enough to ignore, or maybe a small piece of thin-gauge stainless steel could be sub'd?
Indeed, Electric Me; my catalytic converter was indeed stolen from my 2008 Prius Tspirit in South London (I am told it’s entirely my fault for going south of the river Thames - but, I digress). I don’t think they made off with any of my heat shielding, there was one big bolt identical to one of two in the diagram, left lying under the vehicle, and that was pretty much it! I considered the possibility some RAT might have been trying to unbolt and slice off your CAT, got disturbed and scurried off into a gutter hole nearby but that type of theft wouldn’t affect the heat shield - unless they were extremely sloppy and dislodged while STEALING your CAT. I guess we all know that’s not the case, but I’d still have the whole installation inspected as a priority. I had Honda and Mazda exhaust heat shields respectively fall off entirely due to corrosion. One was welded back, the other was discarded with a “don’t worry about it” shrug. Fortunately, my old Mazda MX-3 didn’t burn up on reentry during my daily commute back then. If you drive a Prius 2nd Gen, watch out for CAT burglars! The threat is real....!!! I’m driving a soulless Hyundai i20 rental till “The Spaceship” is fixed. Or written off for the want of a replacement Catalytic Converter. Safe journey to the intended traveler iPhone ? Pro
