So I was driving the other day on a road where the pavement was getting redone and on the way back up unto the main part of the street I scraped a little bit of the undercarriage/undertray. I'm not even sure of the correct term.

2 pieces were pretty loose and fell off quite easily with a tap of a 2x4. From the attached pictures, it looks as though they had been ready to fall off due to the rust anyway.

They came off right underneath the driver's seat and appeared to be under the exhaust. It was dark at the time so I wasn't 100% what they had been covering.

I am in Chicago and winter is approaching so I was wondering if this is anything I should be concerned about in terms of the lack of coverage there now.

Thanks.

 

just covers for the cats. Nothing to worry about other than now damaging the cats when you bottom out.

 

Just looks like the heat shield to me. It does 4 things:

1) Protecting near by things that aren't very heat resistant
2) Protecting the cat from road debris
3) At higher temps it helps keep the cat stay at a more stable temp
4) Since the cat does get extremely hot so it could prevent fires (I.E dry leaves, oil and such)

You can live without it but it would be better to have one

 

you're fine...