All right guys, my first post on Scionlife. I'll keep it short.

I've had my 08 spec for about six months now. It's been ____ing fantastic so far. However, more than a few times when parking in a lot with a curb or those cement yellow/gray bars on the ground, I've scraped the front by pulling in a little too far. My tC is definitely one of the lower-riding cars I've had, even with stock suspension, so I keep pulling in a bit too far out of habit because I hate people that don't pull their cars in far enough and leave them sticking out into the lot. So each time I pull in too far like this, the body work is fine, but I scrape that piece of black plastic underneath. The most recent time I did this, a piece of the plastic basically got pulled almost totally off was hanging down until I tucked it back up.

So my question is, how important is this piece of plastic? I assume it's just to protect the radiator from gravel and stuff that can come flying up, but my only other Toyota's been a '93 Corolla, so I'm not really that versed.

 

Well it's not absolutely necessary... but like you say, it's partly for keeping the engine bay a little cleaner and keep stuff from kicking up into it.

But I would also guess that it's partly for aerodynamics/gas mileage. Not that it would make an incredible difference in mileage... but that's likely part of it's purpose.

 

actually its pretty important, helps keep the air between the radiator and engine from being turbulent, which will effect the cooling of your motor.

 

stop pulling in so damn far.

if your having trouble determining how far in you are, just comapre your self to the cars next to you or if you have to, just get out and check and make adjustments accordingly.

 

when I park next to other cars I use the reflection off the side of their cars to see where I am in reference to the stopper thing. Works great at school and I'm never too close...try it out.

 

x2

 

Just ditch the splash guard.

No more scraping it on parking blocks and changing your oil will be easier.

 

Thanks guys, that was really fast.

I do pull in about as far as the cars next to me, but here in Indiana a lot of people drive F-150s that can pull in much farther without scraping anything, so recently I've tried not to pull in as far as everyone else.

And to put everyone's minds at ease, the plastic is still there, but there's just a small bit near the middle (maybe about five inches wide) that is torn and warped from being scraped. And there are a lot of scratches on it.

Does anyone know what the part is actually called?

 

I've recently had an issue with the plastic pieces as well and now it appears I am missing one or two. My entire lining on my front driver's side wheel is gone and so is the little piece on the front connected to it that sits below the air inlet where the VRD fogs go.

I did some searching already and came across this link http://www.trademotion.com/partlocat...26&catalogid=2

that just doesn't seem right for what I am looking for though.

Does anyone know of any other place where I can get the pieces I am looking for?

 

sparks. i was looking them up for a while, but decided i don't need them. a hell of a lot easier to do things to my bumper.

 

I always back into a parking spot it's 10x easier than pulling in.

 

when i got my 05 tC, that piece of plastic was all mangled and the tow hook was bent up inside. (we didnt notice it before we bought it ) the body shop wanted like 175 bucks, and they bent the tow hook out and replaced that piece. It didnt take long and its relatively low priced to keep your engine free from crap up inside of it. I'd just get it fixed and stop pulling in so dang far.