Has anybody hit a small animal like an opossum or raccoon?

I nearly hit 2 this morning and it got me wonder how the factory Cardboard skid plate would hold up to an animal hit like this.

 

I've hit dog's, squirrel, armadillo, and a skunk last summer in Yellowstone. I thought they were going to run us out of the campground. No skid plates necessary with any of those.

 

The factory skid on the Off-road is a composite, I am not sure the Sport is the same material. I replaced mine with the aluminum PRO skid.

 

Is this a one piece that covers the place of the existing two shields? How much does it weigh?

 

Ive hit small animals with cars, unless you scoop em up into the radiator they don’t do much, I suspect you’d be fine

 

Single piece. 35 pounds.

It does not install on the Sport because your truck doesn’t have the cross member needed. There are aftermarket cross members.

If you are going to go down this path, there are a ton of threads on the various aftermarket skids, and requirements for the sport, off-road, etc.

 

I have the trd off road

 

Have you taken a vision test recently at the DMV?

 

Smoked a small deer last week! Got lucky impact was about 15mph, it rolled under. Zero damage I don’t think the factory plastic skids would have held up?

 

Literally this. The plastic bumper will get way more damage than the splash guard.

So far I've only seen the fabric skids get damaged with harsh offroading, nothing on road in normal scenarios.

The tundras have been fine. Most fabric ones are guarded by the lower valance on those models.

 

Avoid the raccoons, they hold grudges.

 

I was running late for work one winter morning. There was a small rise in the road over a large storm pipe. I was doing about 45 and when I popped over that rise there was an entire gaggle of geese crossing the road. I hit them before I could even touch the brakes. Emerging from the plume of feathers was a black Chevette still doing about 45.
Never slowed down. But in the rear view mirror, a couple of nice wash curls were traced out by the finest of goose down.
Later that day we had a delivery guy stop by the shop and commented on the half dozen dead geese scattered about the murder scene.
I felt really bad about it at the time, but today I chuckle about it.
Oddly enough there was no damage at all; not even a feather in the radiator. And if ya recall they had a lower metal air dam, not much thicker than a pie tin.
(I know, not Taco related)
So one day I was going hunting and my brother was driving behind me on the dirt road.
Doing about 40 or so, this trash bandit tries to cross right in front of me. I had no time to hit the brakes and if I had my brother would of hit me, so I stayed the course. I heard the critter bounce between road and underside about a half dozen times, but all I saw was dust from the road, in the mirror. So we gets to where we hunt and I get out to open the gate. My brother falls out of the car laughing so hard he can't stand up. He said that bugger rolled up into a ball and spun around so fast. And the only indication of spin rpms was the reflection of his gigantic eyeballs reflecting off his headlights. And when he came out the back he unfolded and scampered off, but the eyeballs continued to spin.
For the rest of the day, my brother would just bust up laughing at random times, for no apparent reason. Needless to say we went home gameless.
There were fur tufts on the muffler clamps, but that was it.

 

Then you are good to go. They are on sale!

I thought I was replying to the original poster who has Sport as their vehicle. Apparently I needed coffee to wake my brain. Sorry.

 

Hit a opossum a few weeks ago with my Rav4 Prime in a snow storm on our way to the dealer to see my new taco that was just delivered to the dealer. The fucker busted all of the cheap plastic shielding apart under half the vehicle. It is held up with cable ties for now, but $650 to repair it all. I do not think it would hit under the taco.

 

It's a composite splash guard.

 

A few years back I hit a deer head on at around 65mph. Was around 2am on the highway, in the left lane with a car ahead of me in the right lane. The other car braked, but by the time I saw why, it was already in my lane, didn’t have time to apply the brakes. I was driving a Hummer H3 with 35s and I rolled over that thing like a speed bump and kept going. It was almost a full size doe and It went right under the passenger tire, never to return. Zero damage to the H3 but I spent about an hour with a pressure washer the next day getting the guts off the undercarriage. Poor gal didn’t stand a chance…

Note to self, even though you’re craving Taco Bell, slow the F down @2am…



The murder weapon:

 

Crispy
Theyre on-sale where?
Or, were on sale...