Winter Grill Cover

From Fusselman.org

This is something I've been looking at for some time, and my mom finally gifted me one for my birthday. Probably some mothering instinct or something, making sure your kids are staying warm... The TDIs are great during the winter, but a bit too great at efficiency when what you really want is heat to keep your toes warm. Heated seats go a long way, but when it's 4 below, the cold air rushing over the radiator means the thermostat will take forever to open, especially if you're sitting still in traffic (it warms up much faster above idle).

Big diesels (semis, pickups, etc) solve this problem with cardboard or insulated grill covers. VW answers with the "Cold Weather Front" (P/n# ZVW-193-898). The kit comes as 3 parts: Two panels for the upper grill (on both sides of the VW emblem) and a panel for the lower grill, between the peripheral fog light and air intake grills.

Installation is a bit tricky, but the instructions are good. The covers entirely obstruct the upper grill, and cover about half of the lower one. I found it easier to remove the lower grill from the bumper (there are 6 plastic tabs that can be unclipped by hand), install the cover, and then reinstall the grill.

Sometime, when my car isn't shamefully dirty, I'll take some pictures of it installed. It looks very sharp. As is the way of things, though, I've been through the coldest month I can remember without said covers, and now that I have them installed, it's 40 degrees out. Don't worry, though, I did clean the grills before installing the covers, so as not to seal in salt and dirt and nastiness.