Anyone Hit a Bale of Hay on the Highway?

Subject line.

Pitch black at night and a standard bale of hay, maybe half bale was square in front of me. Hit it and obliterated the bale, but not before I dragged about a quarter of what was left with me until I came full stop.

Anyone ever do this? The hit was enough to put a sizable dent in my skid plate, should I be concerned about anything underneath my truck? No leaks or anything loose upon visual inspection.

 

hit a couch once. but not a bale of hay yet.

 

Is this a OEM skid or a steel aftermarket skid? What is a sizable dent?

 

The thread title made it sound like you were "asking for a friend".

Sorry it was your truck. Where you at? I have a spare OEM skid that is basically new that I would give away.

 

Not sure why it matters if anyone else has ever done it......

I'd suggest a through exam of things in daylight, along with a good work light. It's likely the skid did it's job and all is well. But you wouldn't want to have an errant wad of hay tucked up around anything, especially your cats or exhaust.

A well packed bale is heavy and compact, but fortunately bursts easy, so while you got a dent, that's likely all that happened. Be thankful it was positioned such that it was low enough that's all you hit and you were able to hit it square, not with a wheel.

Guessing the factory skid? Pull it off and work out some of the dent from the backside. Leave 'scarring' for future tales of adventure.

 

Dropped a bale of hay off the truck back in early seventies. Turned around to go it it when a new Ford pickup hit the hay bale going about sixty. Needless to say the hay bale didn’t survive along with parts on the underside of truck. That fellow shore was mad. I wasn’t but fourteen but I had enough sense to act like it didn’t fall off my truck.

 

When I first read you hit a bale of hay I was thinking it was one of these round bales like I would see when I lived in North Dakota. Luckily it was a smaller rectangular bales.

 

The bales off my place are 6 foot by 4 foot and weigh 2,000 lbs each. If I hit one of those with my Tacoma there would be nothing left of my truck.

Farm math...Truck goes into bale at 60 mph one time with nothing left over.

 

I killed a falling bale of bedding sawdust once with a Ford Ranger that fell off a truck going the opposite direction around a corner. It smashed the grill and it took a few weeks before it stopped flowing out of the air vents inside the cab.

I also almost hit a giant bale of cotton once while going 65mph on the interstate at night , I managed to drag it off the freeway out of lanes to save someone else the trouble of hitting it.

 

Turn your lights on next time

 

I have an extra factory skid plate I can sell if you are interested. PM me

 

Fortunately they were on. Unfortunately, it was an unlit area and only 2 lanes. I won’t even lie, I was speeding a bit.

It may have fallen off a truck shortly before I hit it, because by the time it was in view, I was too close and didn’t want to swerve to avoid it since there was a car a little behind me in the next lane.

 

I won’t front when I make an asshat mistake.

I live in the Bay Area (CA)!

 

It was OEM.

I hit it square and the dent is dead center of my skid. It’s not super deep, so I assume the brunt of the impact was at that point. I’m more concerned the quarter I dragged with me ran down the middle of my truck.

 

This guy did.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ber-ELO-killed-falling-half-ton-hay-bale.html

 

Be thankful you had the skidplate take the damage instead of your fan shroud/fan/oil pan or oil filter.

 

Check for hay stuck around exhaust/heat shields...

 

All I can think of is all that tinder stuck under the truck

 

I'm in Santa Rosa, if you want the skid plate.

 

Should have done that. I swerved to miss a couch once back in the late 90s with a GMC Jimmy and ended up rolling it... Police officer said next time just hit it and don't try to go around, you are better off.