More Details on Active Grille Shutters (Video)

There was a cold spell here and I blocked both lower grilles out of habit (on my gen3 I had them blocked all winter).
Did not know about this automatic grille blocking thingy yet.

Had both lower grilles blocked for about 10 days. The temperatures were -3C to -20C.
Did not notice anything special or had any problems.

But seems like on this gen4, blocking all winter might not be a good idea.

I was thinking maybe to block just one of the 2 lower grills in wintertime, but not sure how much that helps. After thinking about it, it might be that air jus flows faster through the other one if I do that.

Winter is over but I think for gen4 my new strategy for the next one is to block lower grills only if there is a cold spell (-1C or colder all day round for a longer period of time) and let the winter mode handle the rest.

I can understand why they have the +10C limit for winter mode to deactivate.
I bet there might be a lot of snow piling on that active grille at some point when the weather conditions are like that.
(Sometimes the snow just sticks like hell, small snowflakes, round -1C and driving fast on the highway is a pretty bad scenario for these, it just sticks to everything it hits and when you stop it freezes).

Have to take a look and take some pictures next winter to see how these work and how much snow builds up.

 

I wonder if there's a failsafe or a system for keeping these in winter mode if you drive into a heated garage?

Here where I live the shopping centers have indoor parking lots.
I wonder if you just pop in for 15 minutes you could break these? If they are frozen solid when you drive in.

 

The concern could be that if you've blocked them manually, drive into a warmer carpark, can the engine get sufficient cooling as it warms up? If there was a snow buildup, how long would it take to melt in a heated garage? I guess the dashboard would alert you if the engine was overheating.

No idea of the answers - just thoughts which crossed my mind.

 

Watched the video, so the temperature meter is on the active grille itself?
Probably not a problem then, it cannot be +10 and frozen in that case.

 

The active grille is pretty far away from the engine and low, so I think it might take some time to melt.
I was worried about the active grille itself breaking, not overheating the engine.
But I watched the latter video and it is not outside temp that controls it apparently, there is a temp meter on the grille itself.
I doubt it will get above +10C if the active grille has snow/ice on it.

 

Since the car has active grille shutters you do no need to block the grille and I recommend you do not block it.
Manual blocking was an inexpensive workaround because older models did not have active grille shutters.

 

I dont believe there is possibility for active grill overheat engine if it is frozen closed. Then out temp is also cold and if needed, car can easily use radiator fan on those cold temps to cool engine even if grill is blocked.

 

I'm not worried about the engine overheating. I'm worried that is it possible the break the active grille mechanism itself, in some conditions.

I mean if the active grille mechanism is frozen in "winter position" and you drive the car to a warm parking lot and it decides to shut the grilles on start since outside temp is above +10C.

 

If the shutters do not operate normally the car will alert you in the MID display beside the speedometer. A user here had his block heater cord running through the shutters and got an alert when they could not close properly.

 

Although the grill may be far from the engine, it is close to the radiator which will give off heat when the car is not moving, so the shutters should get warm enough to melt any ice on them when you pull up in the garage.

 

So they probably will not break even when if they are frozen then?
Thank You.

 

Yup. I think so too.
And there is quite a big safety gap there with the active grilles activating back from winter mode only if the temp is +10C or higher. That should be quite safe.
Thank You.

 

Look at the video in post 1. There is a Winter control mode where the shutters do not completely close if there is a chance of freezing.
This Winter Control mode was one of the reasons this thread was created.

 

Yes I understood that.
Wintermode is active during winter.
I was worried that if you drive around in a snow storm and then pop into a shopping center with an indoor garage where the temperature is above +10C. Just for 10 minutes or so to pick something up.
So when you leave could it break the active grille system itself if winter mode deactivates even though it is still frozen.
English is not my native tongue so I probably cannot describe this very well.

 

We have not seen anybody here report any issues like that.

 

I may be wrong but I wouldn't think it will break it, as it probably doesn't operate when the car is switched off and by the time you come back and switch it on, it's melted.

 

I would say that there is no way that Toyota designer engineer would put so strong servo to turn grills that they break if something is in the way. That would be just stupid.

 

In fact the one user that did have something in the way got a warning pop up. They cleared the shutters and everything worked normally. This happened in Alaska where it is cold.

 

This should not happen. If there was ice or anything blocking the shutters, it would detect the resistance and stop trying to open/close them. Even if the car thought it was warmer out than it was.

 

Great info.

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