A dead limb fell out of an oak tree the other night and hit my truck on the hood and cowl cover, denting the hood and breaking the passenger side cowl cover panel. The break was right over the cabin air intake for the blower and I know some plastic pieces went down it although there's a flat section under the intake hole so I hope none of it will reach the blower. Its been pretty cold but tomorrow will be warmer so I'm going out there to clean up the mess and get any plastic I can find out of the air intake. I'm pretty sure I can replace the cowl cover myself and the dent is not too bad. The hood already had a half-dozen dents from previous sticks. This one was loud and we heard it inside the house. It was about 9 PM and I heard this 'BLAM'. I know there was trouble when my wife called out 'Did you do that?'. I got the spotlight and went out to see what I could see. When I directed the light over to the cars I saw the wood and chips all over the truck. I actually thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was.
Oh, BTW, I had contracted back in November to have these trees removed but I knew it was going to be at least Jan. before he could get to it. I will really enjoy watching them go down.
I have comprehensive on it but the deductible is probably about what it'll take to fix it. I don't know about the new aluminum trucks. Mine just has an aluminum hood and it is easily dented.
Anyway what I wanted to know was if anybody had ever gotten foreign objects down into the blower area. I'm going to use the small shop vac with a narrow attachment to get anything out I can after I remove the visible pieces. I guess the 3" limb fell in such a way that the butt end struck directly on the plastic cowl cover then it fell across the hood - thereby missing the windshield and limiting hood damage, so it definitely could have been worse. I guess after getting everything out I can, I'll just have to turn the blower on and see what happens.

 

Just got back from 'Dent Wizard' and they can handle it. It turned out I only had a $100 deductible. I'm replacing the cowl grille myself. I had the option of a body shop with some repainting but for the same price I'd rather keep it all original by using Dent Wizard. So, bottom line its going to cost me about $157 after getting $500 from the insurance co. Of course I'm fixing ALL the dents (10) instead of just the three caused by this incident. Branches have been falling on it for years and one put a large shallow dent on the top in the driver's side front corner.
After all this I'm going to have it buffed and waxed all over plus a total detail by me. I guess I'll have to take some pictures when all's said and done, and I can include some pictures when it was new for comparison.
BTW, been driving it and using the blower with no noise from foreign objects - must be a screen or something in that air intake, but when I get the cowl grille off I'll see if I can get the small shop vac hose down there.

 

And yet someone thinks it's still a good idea to park under large branches.

 

And yet another wise-*** thinks he knows enough about somebody else's business to make a condescending remark.

 

That's the best approach. You can also tape a smaller more flexible hose to the end and try your best to wiggle it around to see if it will grab anything. Bigger pieces obviously won't get sucked into the hose, but as long as they get sucked to the end of the hose you can keep hauling them up and out.

 

Maybe, but it was still a little funny.

 

Sounds like you dodged most of the bullet. Chit happens, fortunately it wasn't too bad. The last time I heard a big limb go "Bang" it was landing on the roof right above our bedroom.