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Interior & ExteriorDiscussions about the interior, and exterior of your vehicle.
This is a discussion thread titled "Grill Guards", within the Interior & Exterior forum, part of the Technical & Vehicle Assistance Forums category.
Hi all - I have a Black 2004 DC and am looking to do some exterior Mods. The first being a Grill Guard. The primary reason for a Grill Guard , along with making it look much better, is to offer some protection against deer. Luckily i have not yet hit one, however with the amount of deer on some of the roads i travel on at night - it is only a matter of time unfortunatly
Can anyone give any insight to to amount of protection a grill gurad will actually offer if i am crusing at 40- 45 mph (Its a back road ) and one of these bad boys jumps out in front of me. Basically i am trying to find out will the grill guard absorb most of it and protect the front body/lights etc or will it just crumple and destroy everything behind it.? If it is more so the latter - then is it somewhat pointless as a means to offer protection.
What are Good/Popular makes of Grill Guards?
Obviously this all depents on speed of tundra, size of animal etc, but in general situations, have people seen grill guards to be worth it for protection?
Second Concern i have is, how do Grill guards affect air Bag Deployment.?
Where are the Sensors in a Tundra.? What force of impact is needed to set them off with a Grill guard on? (i.e. will i be stuck to the tree in front before they deploy ) Is there an installation procedure for grill guard to integrate it into the trucks sensor system a little better.? or are people in general not concerned about this?
Third question i Did have was will it affect my insurance - they confirmed that it will not - if anyone is interested in this. I am With Allstate in NY State
Thanks and am glad i found this forum - alot of great information in here!!
Id recommend the WAAG Grille Gaurd (DC uses the Seqouis front one).
It offers some protection to the front end. Its pretty beefy. wont fly back and destroy the truck's sheetmetal. The thing you have to worry about it the deer possibly flying over yor truck and doing the damage there.
I dont know about airbags, but WAAG claims their gaurds dont affect factory airbags. Ive never been in an accident with a vehicle with a gaurd so I dont know. Never heard of one for that matter.
Dunno about the insurance, but most grille guards are not designed for heavy impact. And a deer at 45MPH is gonna be a significant impact. They're really designed to keep brush and minor impacts from hitting your front end.
The WAAG guard (which I also have) is designed to provide some protection, but still crumple under a severe enough impact to prevent damage to the occupants of the vehicle. If your vehicle doesn't crumple, all that force doesn't get relatively gently absorbed, instead it becomes a sudden decelleration which is what causes injuries to occupants. If the guard were built strong enough to absorb a heavy impact, it would probably also kill or severely injure the occupants by not allowing that energy to be absorbed. From the WAAG site: "We consider our guard a medium-strength guard, suitable for pushing a vehicle, but one that will crush in an accident." ( http://www.waag.com/faq.php )
There's some controversy about guards and airbags, in which some people say they will mess with airbag deployement, yet on the flip side some automakers offer their own factory grille guards. *shrug*
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Genthar
Rhino Lining, Waag one piece grille guard and wheel to wheel nerf bars, 3M Xpel on headlights, front corner lights, and foglights, Valentine One radar detector, XM Satellite radio, Lightforce 240 Blitz aux lights, Aux. reverse lights.
AEM Brute force intake, courtesy of AEM Power and TundraSolutions.com
Teamwest Coilovers, JBA Headers, Y-Pipe, and EVOL exhaust.
If you're looking for sufficient protection so the bumper & animal don't come back into your radiator and front quarter panels, you need to have the front guard bolted/welded onto your frame and the guard needs to be made out of 1/4" steel/iron or at least .188 tubing or re-enforced .120 tubing, if you go with a tube bumper. The problem with this type of "protection" is that it will give protection to your front end but unless you're in a 5-point harness, you'll kiss that steering wheel, if you hit a 160# whitetail at 50 mph. In most instances, you'll see that bad boy coming up outta the ditch in time to slow down to 25/30 mph impact speed and that you can handle - so can your passengers if they see it and brace themselves prior to impact. If they don't, they'll get bruised up a bit, if lucky. Most fabricators won't make you a front or rear bumper like that, due to liability factors and those that you can purchase commercially will buckle, usually resulting in minor to moderate damage to your front end. My rear bumper is solid on my frame and I'm always checkin 6 at intersections and stop & go traffic. I've slammed into boulders sliding downhill at 3 to 5 mph tops and the jar is terrific and really snaps the head back. My rear bumper has prevented a lot of damage to my rear end in several instances and so far, neither my passenger nor I, have received anything more than a sore neck for a couple of days. I've got the ARB bawl calf bumper up front and that will buckle, but in my case, I'm lifted up front nearly 6"s, so I should be able to break the deer down and roll him under my vehicle. So far, my Tundra has tangled with only one whitetail and she won, as she changed direction upon coming up on the road and angled toward me and just managed to hit my drivers -side mirror (tearing it off), spun around and hit the left rear quarter panel and then bounced off the road - damn thing just got up and walked off into the woods. When you see a whitetail coming up outta a ditch and if you've seen this event dozens of times before, so you can semi-accurately judge the critter's intend, but now you're on top of him instead of the usual 25 yards back - my advice is to brake hard and steer at his hind quarters (providing no oncoming traffic!!!) as you'll increase your chances of missing him or if you do clip him, it usually won't be much of an impact and that bumper will have paid for itself unless you have a $50/$100 deductible, instead of most people's $250/$500 deductible.
On this discussion of grill gaurds, and bumper gaurds (which I'm considering) I have a related question. I see at these places like Wal-Mart and other auto-shop wannabes they sell these anti-deer whistles that stick on the bottom of your front bumper. What I want to know, is do these things actually work against animals like deer and possibly Javelina? For as little as they cost, I'd suspect not.
On this discussion of grill gaurds, and bumper gaurds (which I'm considering) I have a related question. I see at these places like Wal-Mart and other auto-shop wannabes they sell these anti-deer whistles that stick on the bottom of your front bumper. What I want to know, is do these things actually work against animals like deer and possibly Javelina? For as little as they cost, I'd suspect not.
Your guess is correct. I know a couple people and have heard of several others that have had the experience of knocking their radiator into their fan amongst other damage, when striking a whitetail, while being "protected" by the deer whistle. The only "official" study I know of was done by the Nebraska State Patrol many years ago - I think the study period was two years and the result was there were as many deer strikes with patrol vehicles equipped with the deer whistles as those not equipped with the whistles.
Grill Guards
) Is there an installation procedure for grill guard to integrate it into the trucks sensor system a little better.? or are people in general not concerned about this?
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