Hello guys,

I have encountered an interesting problem with my 1996 E200. I touched the ground (hard) with the bottom of my car two days ago when driving over uneven parking lot and noticed that certain rattling/flapping noise started coming from the rear of the car at speeds above 20 kmh, although the noise would go away when driving over 60 kmh.

Naturally, I figured I broke some cover and went to a repair shop, where they found that a small metal shield that goes on the exhaust pipe (at some point around the middle of the car, it mounts on top of the exhaust) is rusted and broken. They figured it was too thin to weld and it doesn't really do anything, so they just broke it completely off and told me that was it.

Now, me, being stupid as I am, didn't even retrieve the part. Which I am currently worried about, because the problem persists. However, the noise can now be heard right after shifting into 3rd or 4th gear and accelerating relatively hard. The frequency of rattling is proportional to how hard I press the accelerator and it goes away after 2000 RPM, it is essentially heard at around 1700-2000 RPM.

What do you guys think this could be? I'm fairly certain it has to do with the exhaust system, it's definitely nothing like the humming noise from the differential and it must be something that I had damaged by touching the ground.