Have people tightened theres up or is this an issue that we will have to live with?

 

The bolts can rust holding the heat shield on and drop out. A replacement stainless nut and bolt from your local ironmongers is a 50p long term fix if you can't drown out the noise with your stereo.

 

Silly question here but.. where is the cat? Is it at the manifold end of the exhaust or further back towards the back-box.

 

Manifold end.

From inside the car if you look at the transmission tunnel you will see a lump on the drivers side and there isn't one to match on the passenger side. that's where the cat is.

Kneel down next to the driver side door and peer under the car

 

Cool, sounds like that could be the source of my rattle then. Hopefully the garage will confirm on Friday

 

I had a similar rattle, turned out that most of the heat shield bolts were missing.

 

Update: garage say its the clutch release bearing and it wont cause any harm, just annoyiong.

Guessing it would be a gearbox out job to replace the bearing?

 

Does the rattle go away when you press the clutch pedal?

 

My mistake - that garage was talking about a different noise. They're not sure what this one is, doesnt appear to be a heatshield or anything serious. Cars due an MOT/service in a few weeks so will see if it gets any worse and sorted then.

 

it will really start to bug you when you have the roof down.