I am getting ready to add a J1772 electric vehicle charger inlet (salvaged from a Nissan Leaf) to the front of my truck. I decided to hide it behind a fold up license plate. [In Georgia, we only need rear license plates, but many vehicles have novelty plates on the front.]

However, the stock front air dam / deflector / lower valance panel that was under the front bumper had a lot of air and foglamp holes molded into it, didn’t really have a good spot to mount the inlet or a fold up license plate bracket, and had a few pieces of plastic cut out where somebody had tried to mount something previously. (Note, the pictures below show the air dams resting upside down on the concrete, the side facing down bolts to the bottom of the bumper.)

Looking around online, I found an online distributor (getallparts.com) that was apparently closing out their supply of an after-market smooth front air dam that replaces the stock one. (OE # 15658455, Partslink GM1092157)

What really sealed the deal was the fact that they were charging only $9.42 (plus $18 S/H). (Other websites were selling a similar part for $80-90, so this was quite a deal. At that price, I almost ordered two of them…except that the shipping costs were not combined and also doubled…)

A few days later this really large (72″x12″x12″) box arrived:

The aftermarket air dam is nice and solid, with no holes. It slopes inward at the bottom a bit and has a slightly concavity, but it will be much easier to work with than the previous one, and may even help my aerodynamics slightly.

As a side note, getting the original part off was a real pain. Access to the bolt heads is inside the bumper, and you really want a ratcheting box wrench, as there isn’t enough room to get a real rachet inside, and various steel pieces keep you from moving a wrench more than 10 degrees at a time on a few of them. I eventually just got out my sawsall and cut through all of the bolts (melting the top of the old part a little in the process). The main problem is that the plastic clip nuts couldn’t be turned, and the bolt heads were the only part that could be turned. I will be replacing them with stainless steel bolts, nuts and fender washers, making it much easier to install/remove by tightening the nuts on from the bottom, and counting on a generous application of Loctite to hold things in place.