crosbyericm

Wondering if anyone has any experience with any skid plates for under the engine? As I just purchased my vehicle, and was underneath it looking for the source of a small oil leak, I noticed just how many critical hoses, parts, etc are well within the area where a large boulder would certainly destroy them. I see where there was previously a skid plate (im guessing plastic) bolted up, but it was not included with the car, and Im wanting to promote a long lasting engine.. Wondering if anyone has any experience with these metal belly pans?


Audi Allroad 2 7T Evolution Thor Skid Plate 4 8mm Aluminum Skid Plate '01 05 | eBay


Looks decent - but whats everyone thoughts?


thanks again!

PaperToast

looks great; even though i have yet to scrape the oem skid plate whenever i go 4x4'ing

G0to60

I've scrapped a few times in mine with the plastic skid plate. It's held up all right but can't take very much abuse. That Evolution skid plate, from what I've read, is pretty good and made well. Know that it doesn't go all the way back over the transmission though. The only company that I've found that does both an engine and transmission skid plate is out of Hungary. These are steel and I have no idea of their quality.

Cikkek | www.metalskidplate.eu

1guitar

Way back in the days when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and cars didn't have skid plates I never ran into any problems with my cars not having skid plates and if the truth be told they do little in the way of actually protecting the under belly of your car. They do of course make it much harder for you to do your own maintenance on your car which is why the car manufacturers put them on the cars to begin with, I just purchased an Audi A6 and although you can do an oil change draining the oil thru thru dipstick tube I'd prefer to drain the oil by taking the drain bolt off of the oil pan, especially since the first oil change is the most important imo as the first one not only drains the oil but more importantly the small (even microscopic) metal shavings or metal particles so they don't scrape or mar the sidewalls of the piston sleeves. Of course there are folks out there that don't much car about whether their engine lasts 250,000 miles or 25,000 but if the truth be told the oil pan drain bolt is an A1 type bolt, meaning it is really meant to be a single use bolt and gasket assembly and if you remove it you should really replace it with a new bolt (preferably one with a magnetic nipple on the end of the bolt as well as a new crush washer. In any case if that skid plate weren't there underneath the car it would make changing the oil a breeze instead of a pain, not to mention a number of other jobs. Lastly, if you ask Audi why they started putting in skid plates in their cars to begin with they will tell you it prevents rust, given the rust issue that is the reason why they started to make exhaust systems and some other parts people got tired of replacing every 25k to 50k miles out of stainless steel, regardless of that even with the skid plate in place or removed most all of the steel body parts that aren't made out of stainless steel rust anyways and one last comment there is only one skid plate on my car (A6) and it just happens to cover the entire engine, the place where DIY's would like the freest access to. Skid Plates, one step up and two steps back.

YKallroad

I have had the Thor skidplate for the past few years. It's very well made and fits the car well (some fiddling necessary but nothing out of the ordinary when trying to attach metal to plastic bits while lying on your back!)

As previous poster said, it does make working on your car more difficult (time-consuming.) I've taken a few hard hits on the plate, however, so I feel it's time and money well spent.

Thor skid plate for Audi Allroad by Anson Chappell, on Flickr