Taco meets deer / Taco looses

Just left the house Tuesday morning to go to work . It was still dark and the road poorly lighted when a only got about a mile down the road a large doe jumped over the guard rail and directly in front of my truck. I hit her going about 45MPH. The deer flipped several times in front of me as I tried to avoid running it over but then bolted into the darkness where I am sure it died. Needless to say my truck took considerable damage which has amounted to about $3800 with the estimate I got today. I was able to drive it back home and had to hose it down to get the deer"stuff" of the hood and passenger side. Fortunately the damage was mostly to the front end but the passenger fender was pushed back to the door and with only a minor ding and wont need replaced. The air dam will have to be torn off because it is now rubbing the tires. Maybe its time for some upgrades! I really like this truck and took it hard to see this happen. It could have been a lot worse.

 

Ugh crap. Sorry to hear that!

 

Damn! Glad your OK.

 

No airbag deployment... no deer in your cab. Sounds like a win to me.

 

Bummer, that was a nice truck.

Oh well, time to fix it up and add some mods.

Hope you get it back to your liking.

 

Welp, time for a steel bumper. While you’re at it might as well get the matching rear bumper too

 

Hells yeah, get a steel deer killer bumper and one in the back just to hit him in reverse, if needed.

 

Look on the bright side... you could probably get the repair shop to order a TRD PRO grille rather than the one sitting there now.

 

This could be the best thing thats happened to your truck. Now, make it happen!

 

Looks like your truck won to be honest. Bet the deer was killed, and your damage isnt even that bad.

 

Glad your ok!! Damn that sucks.

 

A tie at worst.

 

That sucks. Go check out the group buy on the Mobtown aluminum front bumper. I love steel as much as the next guy but I think bumpers are a good place to save a little weight.

 

Blessing in disguise, IMO.

 

Like others said, good time to upgrade, if you feel the need.

But you need to find a shop that will work with you on that. I've been to some shops that will only fix to OEM (or aftermarket equivalent) parts. Some shops are happy to order ARB parts (which may be the only way to so, since most others have a backlog of 6-8 weeks). Good luck.

 

Venison?
Don't let it waste in the woods. Money spent on repairs equals money saved on meat.

 

I hit Bambi on October 24rth. My Tacoma went in the body shop the first week in November where it has sat since. The body shop has it tore down and prepped but cant do anything else because their supplier cant get parts for it. They are confused because I have a TRD and Limited fog lights and keep saying it should only have SR parts on it. The parts are back ordered now until December 3rd. I was also told Toyota wont shut down a production line to just run parts for my truck. I know this is a bunch of crap. The body shop doing the work has done stuff for me before and do great work. They are just as frustrated and even let me sit in on the phone conversations. Has anyone else run into this?

 

It it were me, id spend the money on new aftermarket stuff. I can almost guarantee that a steel aftermarket bumper and a grille and fog lights of your choice will be cheaper than OEM stuff. That’s just me though.

 

How does the Deer taste???

 

A good upgrade would be in the headlights if you haven’t done so already. Let’s you see the deer in advance so you can react quickly. This time of year the deer are moving around and getting hit everywhere. I do a lot of driving in the dark and thought the factory lights did a poor job of lighting things up ahead of me. Just spotted a deer last night getting ready to cross the road ahead of me. Don’t think I would of seen it with the stock headlights. Good luck on getting your truck fixed. Hope everything goes well.