How to prevent things from dropping into the battery vent?

Re: How to prevent things drop into the battery vent?

If you're worried about this, cover the vent with plastic door screening which you can get fairly cheaply. It's sold by the length, and you can easily cut it to fit.. I'm not sure if the edges will unravel, but if they tend to do that, you can probably find some sort of edging that will prevent that. A possible edging solution would be to buy several of those plastic term paper covers that have a plastic spline to hold the pages together. Run two or three of them along the vertical edges of the grid, and cut one in sections for the top and bottom edges. Velcro discs available at your local drug store could probably be used to attach your screening to the grid. Not sure how it would look, though.
Considering all the things that can could go wrong with a new, highly complex car, I wonder how likely it is that your problem would be something falling into the battery grid. I wouldn't stay awake at night worrying about this.
Bob

 

I hadn't thought about it myself. I think I'm with Bob on the 'don't worry' bit, unless your kids are the type that would shove a peanut butter sandwich in the VCR to see if it would go.

I think I would worry about restricting the airflow using screening. I don't know how much flow it needs, but all those thin threads add up to a lot of material.

 

No access panel. Duct connects to squirrel cage style blower motor, to another duct to the passenger side of the battery. If something were to drop in there, I would think you would know it as the fan kicks it around.

The duct is held in by 3 clips., and is hidden by the deck trim side panel. That is held by 3 screws and a clip, one of the screws holding the luggage strap loop.

I don't think a screen would be a problem, especially if its holes are big enough. If there is some restriction, the fan would probably compensate by runnning faster. It is continuously variable speed.