2009 heat shield rattle

[beemerphile1]

I've gotten some rattling sound from the rear of the 2009 Vibe. I investigated a few days ago and found that the heat shield between the muffler and body has come loose. It appears that it was fastened to the floor by four steel studs, washers, and nuts. Due to the dissimilar metals, the aluminum shield has rotted around the mounting studs allowing it to fall. Now it is just sitting on the muffler and trailer hitch receiver.

It doesn't appear to be in danger of falling but I am pondering doing a fix. I am thinking of cutting some aluminum stock to make my own oversize washers. What do you think? The oversize aluminum washers will span the existing large holes and last a lot longer than the original thin sheet aluminum at the mounting studs.

Of coarse one concern is removing the nuts without shearing off the rusted studs.

It looks like I will probably need to remove the hitch receiver to access two of the mounting studs so I want to only do it once.

Anyone else have this happen?

[Zimm]

the same thing happened to the heat shield over the cat on my '10 a couple months back. i took it to a local shop. 5 minutes and $15 later, they ran some screws with washers up into it with an impact wrench and all was well again. i imagine it's only a matter of time before it happens again, but no big deal...