We are having a baby in the fall and that prompted me to find a more family friendly vehicle. I heard good things about the Ford Flex and it's "man-van" appearance. My wife did not warm up to the idea of a true minivan, and as a landscape contractor the odd tall plant/product sample/ladder/etc. was getting a little troublesome with the Civic. Ford Flexes are still quite pricey, but I found out the that predecessor Taurus X (and the Freestyle before it) are essentially the same vehicle underneath - so the search began.
Long story short, wife liked the car, I liked it too, the price was acceptable for having only 81,000 miles on it - so now we own Minotaur. ("Taste the beast!" ... anyone? anyone? "Role Models"? ah... never mind.
)
It's front wheel drive which is unusual since most of them were sold with AWD. Similar setup as in the Volvo XC90 - so it's a decent system. But we were happy with FWD for the FE reasons.
So I finally got around to trying out a mild lawn edging air dam. I followed the recommendations from another forum member (can't think of him now, sorry) but it worked like a charm. The threaded aluminum bar in the edging stiffened it up nicely, and I attached it with self-tapping screws right to the plastic bumper and existing (excuse-of-an-) air dam.
Below are the results of my afternoon tinkering.
Note the temporary electrical tape grille block and foam insers in the upper grille. (Uppermost and lowermost. Leaving the middle two open for now.)
Any comments, suggestions, predictions?