Air Dam- needed?

[szyg6h]

I am moderatly offroading with my 09 Yukon. The air dam is going to get broken
The manual says you can remove it for off roading, but that it should be replaced as soon as possible. R&R is not easy.
I've seen many around with no air dam.
Just how important is it?

 

[GreatWhite]

Hard to know unless you were on the design team. Usually it's there for two reasons: fuel economy at highway speeds and cooling at idle and low speeds (prevents hot air recirculating under the bumper. If you don't think that those are going to be issues for you, go for it.

 

[Millsp]

I bought my tahoe without an air dam and its fine.

 

[2 E L O]

Trim it. The bottom of the bumper looks ugly as hell without the air dam on there... I got the idea from InTruckDesign to just lay down a line with some masking tape and use a cutoff wheel to trim it up. Then I just used a sanding block to smooth and clean up the edge when I was done. It looks great and now I don't have to worry about ripping it off while offroading.

Here is a picture from InTruckDesign:

 

[szyg6h]

Thanks, guys. All good input.