While driving home a few weeks ago, a cat ran across the road literally in the last few milliseconds. It darted out of the grass, across the shoulder, and right in front of the passenger side of my car. There was simply no way to avoid it, and as I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw a deceased cat and bits of plastic tumbling along the road.
Of course as a cat lover, I feel bad about the cat (and its owners, although given where I was driving, it was likely an unloved barn cat), but this is the Ecomodder forum, not the general Internet (which is primarily for and about cats), so on with the damage assessment...
I noticed immediately that my right side air dam extension was missing a cat-sized chunk. I neglected to take a picture while it was still on the car, but suffice it to say that the one piece extension was now two pieces.
I also noticed that there was a big crack in my grill block, with a small piece missing, and one of the metal mounting brackets dislodged. I'm not positive the cat caused this, but I think so, due to the flexing of the bumper.
But the worst thing was that my radiator intake-side shroud was broken. I noticed that the factory air dam was loose one side, but then discovered it was still firmly attached to the shroud, and that the shroud had a crack all the way up to just under the hood. It's possible that my air dam extensions prevented the factory air dam from bending backwards (it's flexible), and instead transferred the impact into the shroud.
I elected to just do quick patch repairs to get the eco mods back on the road, and will rethink the entire thing in the summer, perhaps using more flexible materials than the ABS I've been using.
This picture was taken after I patched up the shroud, using an aluminum plate, stainless steel screws, and outdoor-grade cable ties. This area is immediately behind the passenger side headlight (I removed both the headlight unit and its mounting bracket to get at the broken shroud):
I patched the damage to the grill block using a piece of the same ABS, held in place with screws and ABS cement. It looks a bit rough, but it actually looks better in real life (I had to crank up the low level contrast to make the repair visible in the picture):
Finally, I made a new air dam extension (and one for the other side too, since it had a small crack in it). Rather than using ABS, I used polypropylene from a boot tray. I'm hoping this will be slightly more flexible, but I'll probably make new ones in the summer out of vinyl (PVC):
