I know, they wanted me to think that the rattling was the platinum or whatever metal inside breaking up. When I told them that what they were hearing was the sheet metal of the heat shield, it made the guy either a lier or an incompentent.
It burns me to high heaven when a "professional" tries to rip off another human being who he assumes is ignorant.
On top of this, I asked if he put the temporary failure sticker on (passed safety part of course), he said there's no such thing, but he did me a favor by leaving the old sticker on. Then he hands me the NYSDMV brochure describing how to drive the car to reset the codes, which also states that I do get that sticker to give me time - w/o getting a ticket - to fix the OBDII codes.
Sorry to digress, and I just heard thunder and shuttin' off the computer till storm passes.
thanks again for your help, very much welcomed...
sv