Forgot to mention my run in with bambi?

[JimT]

Honestly I ordered the parts before I actually did the patch job. I drove another 3 days after the incident before patching things up. The bumper is shot. It's pretty much broken in half and only still connected be a couple inches in the middle. Luckily it cracked where it did so that there are 2 mounting points on either side of the crack. The passenger side is missing an entire 7x12 inch section of mounting bracket and I've never even attempted plastic welding or repair so I'd probably just make it worse by trying.

As for the grill, if there were cheaper options I would have jumped on them. I don't need my truck to look like a million bucks, but I hate driving around looking like a scrap yard candidate. I even thought about trying to fab my own replacement for the plastic chrome trim from polished aluminum or stainless steel or something but the curves are beyond my abilities and the material costs and tool investments just weren't worth it, in this case.

And statistically that sounds about right. In 24 years of driving I've had 3 run-ins with deer, 1 in a car and 2 in trucks. This was the only one that resulted in damage. Plenty of other close calls, but even those who are vigilant can still be blind sided. Although, probably the most interesting animal strike I've had was when an owl flew into my windshield.