Bothered by your car’s unsightly display of splattered bug guts? Bug deflectors are an effective tool for protecting your vehicle’s appearance.
If you have ever taken a road trip, your vehicle has probably met a few bugs along the way. Windshield wipers are useless when it comes to clearing bug gunk. In fact, they usually streak and cloud your glass, making it even harder to see.
When you’re on vacation, going to the car wash is the last thing on your mind. Besides wasting valuable time, getting your car washed isn’t cheap. Last time I was over at the local “Clean N Care” I got roped into buying the “deluxe” package, which cost me $29.95! My head started spinning just thinking about how much money I will spend on car washes this year.
Bug deflectors are a good investment. With the money you would spend on a few trips to the car wash, you could buy yourself a bug deflector, which will then save you time and money.
Worried that bug deflectors don’t match your car’s image? You can find a variety of bug deflectors to match your style. They range in size, shape, color—you can even find chrome bug deflectors. Adding a sleek smoke colored bug guard can add unique styling to your ride.
They are extremely easy to install. You won’t have to pay installation fees. It will help having a friend assist with centering the guard, but besides that you can install by yourself in a matter of minutes.
An important step that most people forget is cleaning the hood. You don’t want any dirt of grim on the surface where you will be applying the adhesive. You can use an alcohol pad or a degreaser product for this step.
Once the area is clean, make sure it is completely dry. Deflectors come with a variety of mounting pieces. What’s great about bug deflectors is that there is no drilling involved. That’s right, just a strong adhesive will be securing the guard, so there won’t be any nasty holes in your hood should you decide to take it off.
Your bug guard kit should come with its own mounting pieces. Some products come with circular pieces that are sticky on one side and Velcro on the other. For some guards you will just use heavy duty 3M tape. If yours comes with the Velcro system, make sure the two pieces are stuck together and unpeel only one of the backings. Stick them (together) onto your hood. You do not want to apply the pieces to the guard and the hood separately because it will be nearly impossible to line them up straight.
This is where the friend comes in handy. After all the sticky pieces are attached to your hood, you are ready to stick on the bug guard. It helps to have someone eyeing the placement from a distance to make sure it goes on straight. You can also make little pencil markings on each side to check if it is aligned.
The installation is almost complete. You just need to attach a few small rubber bumpers behind the ends of the bug guard. These will stop the edges of your deflector from hitting your hood at high speeds.
You’re done! It was that simple. And bug deflectors are constructed from quality stainless steel or scratch resistant acrylic, which means you won’t have to go replacing it anytime soon.
You can shop for all your road trip needs online. Find everything from Bug Deflectors to Roof Racks for your specific vehicle.
Showing posts with label Bug deflectors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bug deflectors. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
How much punishment can deflectors take?
Sure, auto deflectors may not be a strong as a Star Wars-grade shield founded on potent imperial technology. But, they can push aside most of the things that come flying at your ride. Where’s the breaking point? Follow us as we test it out with some common household items.
We’ve equipped my 88 CRX with bug deflectors for the hood line, and vent visors for the windows now. Each is made from what appears to be thick, hardened plastic molded specifically for this vehicle. We torqued the installation bolts pretty tight on the hood piece, and pressed hard on the mounting tape for the window sections. Now we’re ready for battle.
First up: some bugs. Is there a bug that might break a bug deflector? Maybe in Texas or something like that, but we’ll test the deflectors against a barrage of small ones instead. That requires a dusk drive through any field near my Central Valley home, where the gnats can block the sun during the spring, until the first 90° day causes their fragile bodies to vaporize. A quick run around the local hay field turns the once smoke-colored deflectors speckled black—the gut bag explosions even have a glitter effect. But, the forces of bug infestations have failed to pierce this armor. We’ll use this as the control of our experiment.
Next up: rocks. From about 60 feet away, we fired rocks at the deflectors, varying in size from tiny pebbles to some of my mom’s decorative garden stones. The first round of pebbles failed to faze the bug deflector, which fared much better than my paint above and below the hood section. Surprisingly, the medium rocks bounced off the deflector without leaving cracks…in the deflector, anyway. My Honda logo is toast. We finally compromised the deflector’s defensive powers with a larger rock, sized 7 pounds. It took the right corner completely off, but the paint ended up unblemished.
Impressive so far, but it’s time to really put these shields to the test with something far more likely to actually happen on I-5. We did the only thing we could think of: grab our water balloon launcher and some driving range golf balls. Firing from about 100 feet away, we completely busted the bug shield in half. This was on our fifth fire; the other four skimmed off the hood and pitted my windshield, blasted the side-view, knocked my rearview glue loose, and the last one came flying off the front bumper and right back at us.
Then, it was time for some all-out destruction. So we followed the lead of something else that happens all the time on freeways here, and grabbed all the rotted lumber we could find on the side yard. With my buddy Beetle driving his S-10 in front of us on a county road, Mench laid flat down in the bed, chucking boards and plywood pieces at random intervals about three car lengths ahead of us. I managed to dodge the first two, and the remaining pieces of the deflector bounced the first plywood scrap, but the muddy 2x4 he threw third left only a few circles of plastic and the bolts attached to my hood. The deflector was dead.
The results of our test were pretty clear: destroying stuff for no good reason kicks ass. And, for the most part, a deflector will get ravaged pretty easily, but it’s better than having your hood get ravaged instead. Why, you ask, would we wreck a set of perfectly good deflectors and abuse such a hot tuner car? We hate rice rockets, our Grandma gave me the deflectors as though it’s what I really wanted for my birthday, and things suck in the Central Valley during Spring Break when you can’t afford to go anywhere except Waterworld.
Bug deflectors are bound to fail you when they get hit, and we still have no clue what a vent visor is for.
We’ve equipped my 88 CRX with bug deflectors for the hood line, and vent visors for the windows now. Each is made from what appears to be thick, hardened plastic molded specifically for this vehicle. We torqued the installation bolts pretty tight on the hood piece, and pressed hard on the mounting tape for the window sections. Now we’re ready for battle.
First up: some bugs. Is there a bug that might break a bug deflector? Maybe in Texas or something like that, but we’ll test the deflectors against a barrage of small ones instead. That requires a dusk drive through any field near my Central Valley home, where the gnats can block the sun during the spring, until the first 90° day causes their fragile bodies to vaporize. A quick run around the local hay field turns the once smoke-colored deflectors speckled black—the gut bag explosions even have a glitter effect. But, the forces of bug infestations have failed to pierce this armor. We’ll use this as the control of our experiment.
Next up: rocks. From about 60 feet away, we fired rocks at the deflectors, varying in size from tiny pebbles to some of my mom’s decorative garden stones. The first round of pebbles failed to faze the bug deflector, which fared much better than my paint above and below the hood section. Surprisingly, the medium rocks bounced off the deflector without leaving cracks…in the deflector, anyway. My Honda logo is toast. We finally compromised the deflector’s defensive powers with a larger rock, sized 7 pounds. It took the right corner completely off, but the paint ended up unblemished.
Impressive so far, but it’s time to really put these shields to the test with something far more likely to actually happen on I-5. We did the only thing we could think of: grab our water balloon launcher and some driving range golf balls. Firing from about 100 feet away, we completely busted the bug shield in half. This was on our fifth fire; the other four skimmed off the hood and pitted my windshield, blasted the side-view, knocked my rearview glue loose, and the last one came flying off the front bumper and right back at us.
Then, it was time for some all-out destruction. So we followed the lead of something else that happens all the time on freeways here, and grabbed all the rotted lumber we could find on the side yard. With my buddy Beetle driving his S-10 in front of us on a county road, Mench laid flat down in the bed, chucking boards and plywood pieces at random intervals about three car lengths ahead of us. I managed to dodge the first two, and the remaining pieces of the deflector bounced the first plywood scrap, but the muddy 2x4 he threw third left only a few circles of plastic and the bolts attached to my hood. The deflector was dead.
The results of our test were pretty clear: destroying stuff for no good reason kicks ass. And, for the most part, a deflector will get ravaged pretty easily, but it’s better than having your hood get ravaged instead. Why, you ask, would we wreck a set of perfectly good deflectors and abuse such a hot tuner car? We hate rice rockets, our Grandma gave me the deflectors as though it’s what I really wanted for my birthday, and things suck in the Central Valley during Spring Break when you can’t afford to go anywhere except Waterworld.
Bug deflectors are bound to fail you when they get hit, and we still have no clue what a vent visor is for.
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