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So I was toddling along in the flow of traffic and the car in front of me drives over what appears to be some other random car’s airbox, big giant rectangular shell of hard black plastic.
The car in front of me had enough ground clearance that it went straight under the center of their vehicle. I obviously couldn’t see it at all until they had driven over it, and it was my turn to either swerve or have it go under my vehicle. At 60 MPH that’s some fast decision-making. Short version: not safe to swerve. Definitely not safe to have it go under a wheel or part of the suspension/etc. So under the center of the MINI it went. The plastic was crunchy. Sounded like the MINI had lunch. Crunchy munchy. Importantly, sounded 100% like all the crunch was the road part.
So, pulled into a gas station and grabbed the flashlight to inspect things. No damage to the bumper cover, telling me I that it cleared the object. No punctures in the underbody shield beneath the engine. Good. No damage to anything else that I could see and hey, what is plastic going to do to the exhaust pipe.
BUT — that piece that sticks out lower than anything else under the car — that distinctive drain for condensation from the A/C? Most of the rubber at its end is gone. Poof.
I need to get the part number for the damaged part, so that I can eyeball it and determine exactly what was damaged in full and make some decisions about repair. It looks more like an annoyance than anything else but I want to be certain.
Anybody know the part and/or got a pointer to a parts diagram that shows it?
I looked at that part by way of Google and doesn’t appear to be it. Wish I had a pre-damage photo, the damaged area is distinctly rectangular on a bit of a tilt, a deep rubber rectangular mouth that sticks out a full 1” or so below the underbody panel. Almost like the end of a vacuum cleaner hose, but with a rectangular instead of circular opening, and black rubber instead of hard black plastic.
Item #9, when you google the part number and eyeball photos of it, doesn’t look like it has a mouth of this kind at all. Not even a close match. My guess is part #9 empties into something else and my broken part is the “something else.”
Ding ding ding we have a winner, that's the part alright -- thanks @ECSTuning . I had *no* idea that was an air connection for the turbo. I guess the AC drain must find its way into that pipe... somewhere... well either that or my car is weird and honestly I wouldn't be surprised *at all* if my car is weird, lol.
But yep, that's the part, no question. Next thing for me to do is to actually get a better assessment of the damage, but it sure looks like that rubber end is non-replaceable so yay more fun stuff for me to uninstall at least 25% of the engine bay to replace
So for the curious, this is what I've found under the car in terms of extent of damage: not much.
- The turbocharger air discharge duct had its rubber end mostly ripped off. The metal it was attached to got bent a little, but it's flexible (you can bend it by hand) and its shape was mostly retained.
- Small hole punched in the service flap for the engine oil drain.
- 1 of 2 rotating clips securing the service flap for the oil filter damaged but not unusable.
- Front muffler got bonked by the road object. Visual scuffing, minor dent in visible impact location that you can feel, about the size of a thumbprint (meaning: meh).
So basically the big rectangular airbox that someone left under the road went under the MINI a bit left of centerline, ultimately winding up at centerline, and did about as much damage as one might expect as it got crunched into smaller pieces too short/small to touch the vehicle.
I am simultaneously (1) a bit surprised by the puncture in the service flap for the engine oil drain and (2) glad that whole underbody shield is there. Being accustomed to working on a vehicle with no such shield, its presence annoys me come service time, especially as the plastic anchors the bolts securing it screw into age. But in terms of handling unexpected road debris, did its job. I'll creatively patch the small hole.
As far as the rubber-stripped turbo exhaust duct, I'll get around to it. The part is around $50 used and as high as about $90 new. Since its functionality is not obviously impaired I'm going to integrate dealing with it into other that-side-of-engine takeapart that I have planned for the future.
Fun photos for fun and reference.
End of turbo exhaust flap. There is a little bit of rubber left, just a little Nice hole punch! Speaks for itself As I look at this I think I see an impact track higher in the pic (top of frame = front of car) but the net is that metal (car) won over plastic (road debris).
Before that the JCW GP2 (that pan i have on my R58 JCW and saved it from a deer remains) was the first after that it was the JCW Countryman/ Paceman, before that its was a front panel or side panel, no full protection.
