P460lawd

Anyone notice how long the car stays hot when you quit driving with all the undercarriage padding/insulation and the plastic covers over the engine. I can feel the heat coming off the front of the car easily 2 hours after wife parks it in the garage. It seems like all the plastic traps heat in the engine compartment- I'm sure they researched this but I am not a big fan of all that plastic covering the engine?

litesoarer

Good for emissions since keeps engine bay hot for fast warmup

greg3852

This car has been out since technically late 2006. There is nothing wrong with the plastic in the engine bay. It's been 10 years. It's fine.

Doublebase

When I first bought the car three years ago I too had this concern, but I haven't had any problems. But yeah, I did think it was a little too hot, a little too long. Imagine what it must be like if Florida?

I'll probably end up removing the engine covers at some point, just for ease of access to the engine. I hate pulling all of them off every time I need to do something under there. Plus I end up breaking or losing half my clips...I probably have ten of them sitting somewhere in the engine compartment. There is sound insulation under the silver center cover, so maybe I'll leave that on - that's probably there for the direct injection noise.

Kennyr44

These covers are a pain in the butt. I hope they keep the noise down though. In my previous cars I have just thrown them away. First thing I did was order 100 clips from China on EBay for pennies on the dollar. Trying to salvage old clips is a too frustrating. In summer my wife and I park in the driveway for a few hours till the engine cools off. I don't care for a sauna garage since I do many other things in there other than park cars.

dlbuckls10

The engine covers and under padding serves a purpose and the newer cars have them.

roadfrog

Don't over-think it. If you don't like them, remove them. However, leaving them in place won't be an issue. I like how they look, especially when the engine is clean. As already stated, you can get the clips from Hong Kong/China for a couple of bucks per bag of 100. As for the undercarriage covers, they go a long way towards fuel economy and keeping road noise away.

Doublebase

Speaking of the undercarriage covers, I was talking to someone the other day and I was saying it keeps the salt and sand away from the car...and he said, or it traps it in. Interesting.

I've never really looked under there to check for rust, etc, but maybe the guy has a point.