Coming home from work i hit a few bumps and hear metallic scraping sounds...i thought my exhaust fell off the hanger...pull over and see that the metal tray (ya ya its 2am, no technicalities) near the exhaust is only hanging on by two bolts. Argh. It's not hanging too low and has some clearance, so I keep driving and get on the freeway...scrapes a couple times but once im up to speed, the wind keeps it up. Once I merge onto the 110, i hear a pop, a scrape, and everything is ok again...nearing the exit, im going slower and the **** is dragging along. ****. i scrape my way through the congested exit, trying to hide since my car is falling apart (my friend recently backed into me and gave me a nice ugly white sideswipe racing stripe down the door and 3/4 panel) Pull into a parking lot and assess the damage...hanging on by one bolt and dragging around. Argh... I cleaned my car today so i could go to the claim adjustor, so i had no tools with me...after some fishing around the glove compartment, i found my saviout--thank God for duct tape, or I would have been making sparks and loud *** scraping noises for the next 2 miles through traffic!

The tape holds and I jack up my car and remove the damn thing. I dunno how they came loose and fell off, but they did. I got curious and started testing all the other nuts and bolts under the car and found a few loose ones one on the cross member that is under the back of the main cat, and one on the transmission cover. Transmission cover was fine, but the one on the crossmember seemed like it was dethreaded since it was just spinning and not going anywhere Kinda freaked me out how they could have gotten so loose. Next time you're under your car, give them all a good twist and make sure they're tight.

 

This, my friends is good preventative maintenance

I've been told by several mechanics that (where feasible) they use zip ties on the undertrays so you don't get the situation described above...