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On Friday the 7th I & a friend drove north from Madison to visit Jurustic Park (spelling is correct) north of Marshfield WI. I took back roads to return to Madison which took us south through Mauston, LaValle, Reedsburg, and Plain, where I turned left on WI Cty B towards Sauk City at about 5pm. Not very far from Plain a deer came up out of the left-side ditch across the left lane and into the right lane. I had no time whatever to brake or go off-road and avoid it. The deer did not survive. But my passenger & I did. There was no airbag deployed. I stopped the Bronco and took a quick glance at the front expecting to see significant damage, yet saw practically none.
We drove on home to a flurry of phone calls from unknown numbers to my phone. In the parking lot with its lights, I could better see that the driver's door had damage, but still, surprisingly, not much.
Discovered then from texts I had received that the Ford System had called the Sauk County Sheriff and the State Farm dongle had contacted StateFarm!!
I submitted a claim to StateFarm and on the Monday after took it to Ball Body Shop in Middleton WI. On our walk around I discovered why there appeared to be so little damage - the driver's side of the brush guard was bent toward the grill by 1"-2"!! That is where the deer met its fate.
The inspector told me that had the brush guard not been installed the damage would have been much worse & possibly the deer might have come across the hood and hit the windshield (with "and through it" left unsaid). Which also explains why the airbags did not deploy.
Damage estimate was just shy of $12,000.
The Bronco had less than 3,000 miles on it in the two months since I bought it.
Moral of the story? That $3,000 brush guard may have saved our lives. I did not buy the Bronco because it had the brush guard, but I'm certainly glad I did.
We drove on home to a flurry of phone calls from unknown numbers to my phone. In the parking lot with its lights, I could better see that the driver's door had damage, but still, surprisingly, not much.
Discovered then from texts I had received that the Ford System had called the Sauk County Sheriff and the State Farm dongle had contacted StateFarm!!
I submitted a claim to StateFarm and on the Monday after took it to Ball Body Shop in Middleton WI. On our walk around I discovered why there appeared to be so little damage - the driver's side of the brush guard was bent toward the grill by 1"-2"!! That is where the deer met its fate.
The inspector told me that had the brush guard not been installed the damage would have been much worse & possibly the deer might have come across the hood and hit the windshield (with "and through it" left unsaid). Which also explains why the airbags did not deploy.
Damage estimate was just shy of $12,000.
The Bronco had less than 3,000 miles on it in the two months since I bought it.
Moral of the story? That $3,000 brush guard may have saved our lives. I did not buy the Bronco because it had the brush guard, but I'm certainly glad I did.
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But I never hit a deer in it. Which is not surprising as Florida didn't then have the kind of deer population it now has (but that is nothing compared to Wisconsin). That car did however flat out move - 327 V8.