Hello,

The heat shield on my '00 A6 2.8L is spent. I'm told by two different garages that instead of replacing with a $400 (part cost only) heat shield, they just cut out the bad section of the heat shield. Both garages "assure" me that removing this is not a problem at all. My car has 195k miles.
My question -> if this is a generally accepted practice is it necessary to remove the bad section? Is the $400 price accurate?
Any advice is very much appreciated. Thanks, al