I went to one of those corporate places for an oil change … This fell off sometime on my drive home from work.

Exact same thing happened to me. Ever since then, I do my own oil changes.

Although, there’s definitely a startup cost. If you’re tight on cash, then I wouldn’t recommend it.

I guess the splash shield isn’t essential for driving… although, you should probably get it back on at some point. It’ll keep the elements out of the engine a bit. Getting water down there will probably lead to corrosion in the future. Not to mention rocks that could dent things down there.

It shouldn’t actually be too hard to put it back on. It’s usually just held on by plastic screws. You just need to buy replacement screws (a few bucks) and find a screw driver. The hard part would be lifting the car high enough so you can crawl under it. Then just line up the holes and put the screws on.