02 Passat wagon: Bird stuck behind grille

Aug 13, 2004 3 Replies

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Bert Hyman 21 years ago

I ran through a flock of birds this morning and hit one. When I got to work, I saw feathers sticking out of the grille and got a stick to pry the carcass out.

Much to my surprise, I found that the bird was quite alive and hopping around in the space between the grille and the radiator. There's no obvious opening between that space and the engine compartment, and the bird's too big to come back out the way it went in (without being accelerated to 60MPH anyway).

There also doesn't seem to be any obvious way to remove the center section of the grille.

So, am I stuck with a choice between spending a half day in the shop and a few hundred dollars, and letting this bird die over a period of days and waiting for its desiccated corpse to fall out?

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SD 21 years ago

I'm not familiar with the Passat at that level, but taking off the Jetta's bumper cover and grille is not that complicated. If you haven't alreayd, you might want to check some sites like VWVortex or Fred's TDI page

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to see if someone has posted instructions, or you might hit the local library or bookstore to check out their auto repair books. Or maybe instructions for the Jetta (I _know_ those are on Fred's site) will give you enough info for the Passat.

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Darryl 21 years ago

Or charge admission. It's sorta like a model ship in a pop bottle. I've never worked on a Passat--I'd say remove the grill but perhaps it's not that simple?

Darryl.

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Bert Hyman 21 years ago

A happy ending ...

Apparently, there ->is a path out from the space between the grille and the radiator, since when I went back to look at the car at lunch time yesterday, the bird had found his own way out.

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