I have a 51 plate Mondeo diesel estate which I drove through a bit of a flood yesterday. I went ludicrously slowly but the bow wave and weight of water seems to have ripped the mountings off the front of the engine undertray so as soon as I drive over 20mph the flap hangs down, scraping the floor in an attempt to imitate a blue whale hoovering up krill.

My local independent garage’s advice is “take it off and throw it away, it’s not needed”. But just before I embark on a long hot trip to Spain, does anybody have any experiences of this – good or bad?

it could just be a case of the plugs the screws go into being ripped out. you should easily be able to bodge a fix for it. either that or do as the garage says. it’ll save you a bit of weight!

EDIT: when ever i do a service on mine, it’s the removal of this part that I dread the most! such a PITA

zip ties are holding mine on…

May notice a little more engine noise but apart from that nothing much. Some people say that it helps with airflow and reduces resistance thus increasing MPG. Probably worth about 1 mile on a tank.

MORE engine noise!!! Mines a TDDI. The Transit-engined one. You can’t get any more noise than that.

And it seems to be completely shredded. It would take a lot of pop rivets and baked bean cans to get it back in one piece.

The bin it is.

Jenson Button would say the lost downforce will make it understeer a bit more, I suppose.