Just noticed it. Solid ice. Been cold here. Drove through some snow, but perhaps the car washes were also a factor. Might try spraying windshield washer fluid on it to loosen it up. edit: Didn't seem to make a dent. Perhaps some judicious application of heat...what could go wrong, lol.
Why worry about it? If it isn't warm enough to melt it, it isn't warm enough to need full cooling from the grill.
At this point in life, all I have is a heat gun, lol. On low, 675 watts, a foot distance is pretty warm, so dangerous to plastic if too close, plus tedious to hold. I have a small personal heater, maybe 375 watts, strong fan. Can put hand right up to grill without burn. Tried that for a half hour. Made a tiny dent. Takes a fair amount of energy to change water's state from solid to liquid, I guess. I might see if the front under cover is easy to take off-maybe there's a short piece, or the like, that I could easily remove and grab the chunks. The cover traps it. I don't want to break anything. A heated garage would be ideal.
Perhaps a grille block of some sort is in order, if only to block the snow, if that's what the root cause it. Maybe black fiberglass window screen would stop the snow from entering. If that gets blocked it could easily cleaned if desired. Still allows air to flow. Maybe a little protection from rocks.
Thanks very much. I was considering that. I’ll give it a whirl, probably. Probably even cheaper than burning the kw-hrs. More kinetic though. They used to have people with hoses aim at stuff like that and the wheel wells. Now they depend on the equipment mostly. Thing is the ice chunks, when broken up, have nowhere to go because of the cover below.
I don't know how effective the shutters are, but I was able to install a sheet of cardboard, with about a 4" gap from the radiator. This allows airflow when its needed, and still blocks the cold airflow from preventing the interior heating from providing comfortably warm airflow. This is something I have done with all my vehicles, going back at least 30 years. It works well in cold weather for providing good interior heat, while not overheating the engine when temperatures get warm. In fact, the cardboard has remained in place year-around since the car was new; providing both interior heat when needed, while protecting the engine from overheating in hot weather. Just as well, because it was difficult to install, requiring some disassembly of the mounts around the front of the radiator. I don't doubt that the automatic shutters do their job, but the sheet of cardboard seems to ensure that proper airflow goes through the radiator at all times of year in this continental climate.
