Piece of my car fell off.....
 

I was driving down the expressway here in Michigan yesterday when I heard a loud bang. I looked around because I hadn't hit a pot hole (their every 2 feet here) and I didn't see any road debris either. Than I got the terrible sound of metal scraping on the concrete so I take the off ramp to get off the expressway but before I can get off we go over a change in elevation of the concrete and bamo, there goes the offending piece of metal back on the off ramp. The quick glance I got looked like maybe an exhaust clip or something used to hold the muffler up into place.

Obviously it wasn't the only thing holding it because the muffler is still held in place and I haven't noticed any performance issues or anything else related to this incident. I will be working on my car this Sunday for something else and plan on sliding underneath to figure out what the heck happened. After I diagnose the issue I will take it to the dealer to fix, because I don't want them to struggle with this for hours on end :)

Absolutly no clue as to what caused this piece to come loose and drag and eventually break off, I haven't had any real close calls or incidents with the car that would have damaged something. I can only guess that it was a rock or something that I didn't see that got flung up into the car's underbody. Let's hope it is the clip and not something more important.

Pictures please!

Is it possible that someone elses debris got caught up under your car?

I will take some Sunday when I get the car on some jack stands and take a look. We will have other owners there so I can do a visual comparison between their car and mine.

Yeah I didn't think about this but that could be possible! I will have to confirm on Sunday when I take a look underneath. It would be great if it was someone else's junk and only passed through. Will keep you guys posted.

So after some close inspection this weekend when putting in my Perrin rear shifter bushing I looked for the part of my car that came off. The verdict is that it was a piece of another car that flew up under my car and got stuck for a short time. One of the plastic cover panels on the underbody had a hole blasted in it from whatever piece of metal hit the car. So looks like the car is intact.

Good to hear it was nothing catastrophic! :thumbsup: