Taco vs. Bambi

I travel to Northern NH fairly often where there's a sizeable moose population. Along with moose zones & the accompanying (and necessary) low speed limits, which I strictly adhere to. I'm sure you also have experienced the usual numbskulls tailgating, flashing brights, & often passing over a double yellow line. I'm not risking personal injury because these clowns don't allot themselves enough time.

 

LOL! I hear ya ... I've seen video of moose in some 'Smalltown Maine' just taking over the place. So since your right next door, I don't doubt you at all. I agree ... Let the numbskulls blast around you and take their chances. Not me. I've seen moose-in-windshields before. It's never a pretty sight.

 

Time for a full hoop bumper

 

Mine was $7500 to fix. Same area hit. Yours looks a little worse. Concealed damage drove the initial cost up. If your whack a deer with these Tacomas hit it head on. There is no real bumper other than in front of the grill. Just plastic on the sides that shatters. The deer I hit walked away but I had to rip the front of my fender back to get it off the tire before I could drive it home.
Any mods damaged will be a nightmare to fix with Toyota. All they care about is your VIN number and if you changed something they will only send the parts that your VIN says is on that truck. I guess I shouldnt complain because they sent me 2 grills and told me to keep them. My body shop was having fits trying to get the truck finished. I have a base SR that I swapped out TRD and Limited parts on.

 

Me: Officer, I'd like to make a report that I hit a deer!
Officer: Where did it's backstrap go?
Me: No clue what you are talking about *Hits lock on key fob*

 

I gotta agree with you ... I've seen them around on older Tacos (Like 15+ years old) ... Like a hybrid of a Bull Bar and a Grille Guard.
A bull bar that covers up the whole grille, but none of the headlight stuff. My thoughts are .. If I can keep something from plowing through the radiator, I should be able to make it home. Busted headlights or fenders .. I can still make it home as long as the radiator isn't bent in half and pissing coolant. I've still yet to find one. There's dozens of bull bars for 3 Gen, but they all only come up to the top of the bumper, not to the top of the grille/hood. *Sigh* .... Doesn't quite work for me...

 

Related question

Ive been looking at afternarket bumpers for bambi protection and i almost feel like the full hoop bumpers that go to the top of the grille provide less radiator protection than the low center tube ones. What do yall think?

 

Had a deer run across a road and run nose first into my rear bumper. Truly a case of a deer running into a vehicle. it does happen

 

sue the deer

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC_lT2gHrUA&ab_channel=Michael almost hit a deer once. I'm still trying to upgrade my shitty aftermarket headlights

my stock halogen fog lights are brighter than the halogen headlights I have. Turning off the headlights makes no difference when driving

 

Yes it does happen .. It's happened to my wife. Deer are suicidal morons.

 

You’re in for it. I hit a female mule deer in late September at around 20-25mph. Did about 4800 dollars worth of damage to my 2018 TRD Pro a fit didn’t look anywhere near as bad as yours OP.

Front grille smashed, both headlamps had broken mounts, bent up hood latch support, tore up the factory bumper cover, pushed the driver side fender out of alignment. Minor damage to the fins on the transmission cooler. Smashed the mounts on the forward radar glass.

My oem light nacelles were 1150 each. Both just has broken brackets that prevented them from being aligned. Lots of sheet metal supports and plastic dodads busted or lost.

Rolled some of the insurance money into an Addictive Desert Designs steel bumper with a winch. It won’t keep Bambi out of the grille though. Took two months to get the bumper. Should have time to fit it on Monday.

 

Bumper finally fixed yesterday. Still need to spool the winch since Superwinch sent the wrong diameter synthetic rope for it. After an hour of cussing trying to get the rope thru the hole in the drum, I called Superwinch and they confirmed that they had sent too larger of a diameter rope.

 

got the t-shirt

 

Wow. I really like that bumper. Looks good, glad you got it sorted.