[Tiliqua]

It had to happen eventually. VW - One; Emu - Nil.
Passing through the Pilliga on the way to Sunny Qld and the bird took to it's heels and streaked across the road to become my new hood ornament. Talk about the ramifications of a small brain.

Anyway, no mechanical damage, just cosmetic so you have to be grateful for small mercies. The real issue as owners of the facelift model will know, grill parts are really hard to come by. I have tried a few wreckers that deal in Touaregs and neither have anything available, in fact one was looking for the same part for his chariot.

I have seen the recent interesting posts on bull / nudge / light bars from WA but that won't solve the grill problem. I'll need to put some thought into this and in the meantime, any comments that might help concoct a solution are most welcome.

 

[Autodas]

Check the cowls down on the intercooler air feed too. I hit a skippy a few years ago and they were toast as well. Sorry to hear of your mishap.

 

[Viking Lady]

Ouchie!
I too have the Facelift 07 and am learning about the mixture of 07 and 08 parts used on the original build. I am wondering of your damaged parts could be replaced with a broader range of years - not just 07 but perhaps 08 would match.
good luck finding the parts you need.

 

[Tiliqua]

It seems that in general, model year 08-10 body parts are useable. Locally they call this the tombstone grille and they are not easily found. I haven't bothered with a dealer as their price will be a sizeable chunk of the cars worth. I'll find a way, will just take a bit of time.

 

[Tiliqua]

Nothing on the used market seems available. After some rational thought and reading all the available posts on bars various back through time, it seems obvious that there are two issues.

1. The vehicle is designed from the ground up to deform under excessive force so there is nowhere to mount any sort of protection that will not have an adverse outcome in attempting to protect the vehicle from forces above the design limits.

2. As long as the vehicle is driveable from an alignment perspective, the biggest impediment to continuing on to a safe haven is damage to radiator, intercoolers, electrical and fluid systems behind the grille.

On that basis the elementary focus needs to be on protecting the vitals as opposed to attempting to minimise damage to headlights and panels.

There are some aftermarket grilles available from O/S but their strength as opposed to their looks is unknown. The OEM parts actually did a good job for plastic in minimising damage so one of the issues in choosing a solution is not degrading the level of OEM protection in the process.

There are some quite interesting products from the US that might form a basis for viable protection but the freight is just not bearable so the search goes on.