I just got a 2010 Chevy cobalt. It runs fine. The problem is the top of the driveway scrapes the bottom of the car. The driveway slopes down toward the house from the road.

I’m wondering how dangerous that is for the car. What parts below are low enough to be scraped? Can they handle being scraped daily without severe damage? My last car was a Honda Prelude. It scraped really bad.

 

most likely it is your intercooler. Depending on how hard you are hitting it may hold up. There are companies (ZZP and probably others) that make smaller intercoolers with better clearance.

 

My intercooler scrapes alot, I used a modern performance intercooler and redrilled the mounting holes so it's up higher, look under it and make sure. Scraping is never good especially in salt states. **** will start rusting quick.

 

It might just be the air dam that is scraping. Jack up your car and see what is the lowest item and look for scrape marks.

 

what happens if the intercooler is punctured?

 

if the air dam is scraped often, is that bad?

 

No it's only plastic.

 

Dude, get under your car and look. Look for signs of scraping and you will find your answer.

 

The air dam actually creates airflow through the radiator so if it's not there you could have issues

 

Unless youre tracking it you probably wont notice a difference doing street pulls, but it does help to have.