Denali grill loose and vibrating at speed

I have an 08 Denali and I love it. It spends almost every night parked in the garage but I was traveling for work and left it parked at the Philadelphia airport for a couple nights and it got well below freezing. When I got back to the airport to drive home I noticed that as soon as I got over 70 mph on the highway there was a vibrating sound coming from the front. I checked it out at home and there's no visible damage anywhere but the bottom of the grill is loose and can be pulled out a little. I'm thinking that moisture behind the grill froze and snapped the clips that hold it in place. Has anyone heard of this happening? And I'm ordering a new grill to replace it but is there a chance that it's something more and so there's something additional that I should get before pulling the current grill off?

Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks.

Might just be the metal pieces that slip on the plastic tabs. They’re known to come loose. I’d pull the grill before I ordered a new one, to see what the problem is. Those clips are super cheap.

just had mine off the other day, there is 4 slots on the bottom and 2 or 3 on the upper sides

Doubeleive said:

just had mine off the other day, there is 4 slots on the bottom and 2 or 3 on the upper sides

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Did any of the clips fall off when you pulled it? Mine on my Silvy always try to.

Rocket Man said:

Did any of the clips fall off when you pulled it? Mine on my Silvy always try to.

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no not this time, on my original one the first time I took it off I broke one or two, but this one is a aftermarket I managed to not break any amazingly.

Is the lower grill attached the same way? Mine has some chrome peeling off in spots and I thought about replacing it sometime.

When I was under doing an oil change last month I looked at the backside of the lower valance. It appeared to me that it had some type of flat tabs that went through the slots and bent outward to secure it?

2001 Yukon SLT
2012 Yukon Denali XL
2011 Yukon Denali RIP 5/20/18

gooffeyguy said:

Is the lower grill attached the same way? Mine has some chrome peeling off in spots and I thought about replacing it sometime.

When I was under doing an oil change last month I looked at the backside of the lower valance. It appeared to me that it had some type of flat tabs that went through the slots and bent outward to secure it?

2001 Yukon SLT
2012 Yukon Denali XL
2011 Yukon Denali RIP 5/20/18

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ya should come off the same way, I just used a short fat flathead screwdriver, poke it in the middle and give it a twist while pulling on the grill

I use a pair of channel locks and squeeze them together.