I have a 2004.5 truck and am considering buying the grill covers / winter covers. My question is this - can I run these year round? If not, my thought was to buy the aftermarket grill guard and winter guard and divy up the sets with another guy at work that way only half of the grill is covered. My thought on this is to reduce the amount of air going into the engine compartment for better mpg - I have seen an increase with my jetta by blocking off half of the grill for the summer.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

SAS

 

I ponied up the dough for a radiator cover specifically for the ctd and it is well worth the money. It goes on and off easy and I put it on when the temps at night start going down to 30* and take it off in spring. The engine heats up quicker for me when I start driving. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

Closing off the front is a bad idea except in the cold of winter. Your truck uses an intercooler to make the air charge denser and improve combustion, defeating that is only going to give you the opposite of what you are looking for.

In the winter you can close off most of it if you wish but remember to leave some air for the tranny cooler if you are working the truck. If you have gauges you should be able to see pretty quickly what I am talking about.

Many members just place a piece of cardboard between the charge air cooler and the radiator to help engine warm up. This also leaves the tranny cooler exposed so it can do it's work as well