So it was already dark outside and I was on my way back home on the I-495 after tearing up some nice singletrack on my mountain bike when all of a sudden, as I was switching from the middle to the right lane, I see a black, circular object which I presume to be the tread from a tractor trailer tire lying in the middle of the lane. It was too late to swerve and avoid the object since I was behind a huge truck which obstructed my vision just before I switched lanes. It didn't look too high so I thought I could try and center my car over it hoping I wouldn't it hit, but I heard a soft scraping sound as it passed underneath. When I got home, I found that it cracked the plastic housing on under my car. Not sure if anything else was damaged, but it looks like the plastic cover was the only thing hit. I took some pics to give you guys an idea of what the damage is like. It doesn't seem to be too extensive, but I'm not sure if this is something I should be very worried about. I'm still going to bring it into the dealer but I wanted your opinions first. Anyone know what the plastic is covering? It looks like one large removable piece held on by screws that covers the front portion of the undercarriage.

 

lucky thats all that happened, my dad hit a tire and it cost 12k to fix the whole front end of his 740

looks like all you lost was a splash guard clip

 

It hurts when you get that first scratch or damage. You should be thankful that it was only the plastic and not harmed structurally or mechanically.

 

yeah i don't think that's any real manage. seems like you put back the clip and you are good to go

 

Doesn't look too bad. The plastic underside is mainly for aerodynamics. The plastic isn't really strong enough to protect anything.

A similar thing happened to me a couple years ago in my IS on the 57 fwy here in CA. After I hit the tire, I heard a constant scraping noise coming from underneath the car so I had to pull off the road immediately. When I looked underneath, it had ripped off 1/2 of the plastic underside and the remains were dragging on the ground, along with some electrical wiring. I had to do some emergency repairs with duct tape and drove immediately to the nearest dealer for repairs.

It was about 3pm on a Saturday afternoon and I took it to Cerritos Lexus. The guys there were very helpful and they fit me in right away. Since I work for Toyota, the service manager didn't even charge me for the repairs and sent me on my way in about an hour.

 

Just got back from the dealer and it look exactly the same. It doesn't look like they did anything at all. They told me they put the clip back on, but nope, I don't see any clip. Anyways, the damage doesn't seem to be too bad so I'll just leave it alone for now. Maybe I'll bug them about putting on a clip in another 2k miles at my 10k service. Thanks for everyone's input. I hate tractor trailors!!!

 

Tell me about it I hate them too!!! I saw a tree fly out of one yesterday on the Garden State Parkway yesterday. If you have any worries about it let me know and if you feel like driving I can have a tech look at it and put the clip back in. I know I have scraped that same piece I think parking. Well let me know steve and sooner later these cars are going to give both of us heart attacks!

 

tire pieces, road kills, rocks........ They all give me heart attack!!

 

AWW! ****e!!! sorry to hear man... SUPERGLUE!!!! j/k.. doesn't that bad, but then that's all i can see from pics... thank god you didn't have a front lip or it would have been much worse...

 

Yeah, I'm glad it's not dropped either. Would've been real bad.

 

I know how you feel. I was hit by a mattress on the NJ Turnipike a couple of weeks ago. Damage was $2,750. It took out my right side headlight, fog light and left a dent in my hood. Insurance paid most, but it still cost me a $500 deductible.

That was the most expensive mattress I never slept on !!!

 

I like how M&M thinks... not "I hit a mattress".... That's an optimist in my book... No one believed me when I told ppl that the wall jumped out at me either...