My back box heat shield has rotted somehow around the bolts and has dropped down, rattles like a tin can! Can I remove this completely? Or do I have to buy another and replace?

Had mine removed by a dealer about 4 or 5 years ago and had no issues since.

Thanks, it's getting removed!

Mine is gone right down to within about 1 metre of the engine bay.  But that's only because there is no exhaust there to shield the car, so why bother having it?

Mine did the same. I just put some large washers over the pin bits and kept them on with some small jubilee clips.

Or maybe just make some repair washers up from empty tins and fit them before refitting the retainers.

I repaired it by using a length of metal between the bolts, drilled holes, used washers and appropriate sized nuts! Looked like a pain to remove.

Its the age old problem of having dissimilar metals in contact along with an electrolyte:- steel + aluminium + salty water = aluminium is going to disappear very quickly. All these shields on the car will be having this problem to some extent. Also, these retainers are a nuisance as they also tend to dissolve, at least on Polo and Ibiza where they are used to retain the two long side plastic under covers, I've seen a few Ibizas with these covers starting to fall down, I take these side covers off every few years and clean out the road grit that gets trapped in them, doing that stops the retained grit causing rusting and it means that you can "catch" the retainers before they fail and replace them and smother them with waxoil to make them last a bit longer.

The retainers on mine have long dissolved and it started to rattle. I used a few short screws and just screwed it to the underside of the spare wheel well. Problem solved .

Remove it

Causes no ill effects

I removed mine

Edited 23 October, 201312 yr by BigJase88

I ripped mine off a couple of months ago. Was a bit of a pain to remove so I cut it up into sections with a pair of tin snips.

I've used some small tie-wraps to hold it up. It seams to have worked and not melted yet. However I've had to re-attach it once. If it fails again I've bought some thin wire to secure it properly.