Millions upon millions upon millions of vehicles have had to deal with this and they may as well all be fine. It's called wear-and-tear.

 

as long as ur screen have holes on it so the air can travel through, i would get some wires mess from homedepo cut it to the size to fit ur bumper, if u do it right it may even look good and protect ur condenser at the same time 😅

 

.,02 Using common sense works better than any screen and costs nothing to buy or install. Ever see vehicles which look like their hoods were peppered with buckshot? Drivers get holes in the condenser the same way they get chips in the paint on the hood......following too close to something kicking up the rocks.

Don't want chips in the paint or holes in the condenser or chips in the windshield:

Do not tailgate

Avoid following trucks unless they have functional intact mudguards that do not sail....if not drop way back or switch lanes.

Avoid following farm equipment

Avoid following vehicles with large tires and/or aggressive tire treds, especially Jeeps with tires extending past the wheel wells without mudguards. Back off immediately if a vehicle, especially one with aggressive tire tred's wants to or starts to cut in front of you or their tires may kick up small gravel or crap that builds up in untraveled areas between lanes

Never follow concrete trucks or gravel trucks either with or without mudflaps, pieces of dried concrete, gravel or crap hung up on the frame/axles which can drop to tires for launching.

Allow extra following distances when forced to travel on gravel or crush and run roadbeds.

If forced behind one of the above on a two lane road with no passing, keep distance and pull off first chance to let the guy behind pass and work as your rock shield (and/or to dissipate a stinking exhaust).

And, even following the above, sometimes $hit will happen.....fifty plus years of driving and only one rock hit to my windshield from a jacka$$ in a POS Jeep with monster tires speeding in the adjoining lane.

 

.,02 Using common sense works better than any screen and costs nothing to buy or install. Ever see vehicles which look like their hoods were peppered with buckshot? Drivers get holes in the condenser the same way they get chips in the paint on the hood......following too close to something kicking up the rocks.

Don't want chips in the paint or holes in the condenser or chips in the windshield:

Do not tailgate

Avoid following trucks unless they have functional intact mudguards that do not sail....if not drop way back or switch lanes.

Avoid following farm equipment

Avoid following vehicles with large tires and/or aggressive tire treds, especially Jeeps with tires extending past the wheel wells without mudguards. Back off immediately if a vehicle, especially one with aggressive tire tred's wants to or starts to cut in front of you or their tires may kick up small gravel or crap that builds up in untraveled areas between lanes

Never follow concrete trucks or gravel trucks either with or without mudflaps, pieces of dried concrete, gravel or crap hung up on the frame/axles which can drop to tires for launching.

Allow extra following distances when forced to travel on gravel or crush and run roadbeds.

If forced behind one of the above on a two lane road with no passing, keep distance and pull off first chance to let the guy behind pass and work as your rock shield (and/or to dissipate a stinking exhaust).

And, even following the above, sometimes $hit will happen.....fifty plus years of driving and only one rock hit to my windshield from a jacka$$ in a POS Jeep with monster tires speeding in the adjoining lane.

Excellent excellent advise that I basically follow, this has some more good tips that I will follow too. When my wife and I travel or if she ventures out on her own to go visit family that's a couple hours away my standard caution "stay away/get away from the trucks!"

 

Good points. Simetimes our brains are not that engaged to always do the above. My morning mental fog caused me to follow a truck, and it had anti sail flaps but, I still heard the tell tail noise of something hitting my car…..

If you generally do the above you will minimize damage.

 

You can do it yourself if your at all a bit handy.

customcargrills.com - Custom Car and Truck Grills - Mesh Grill Sheets and More!

Customize your Car and Truck grill here with the biggest selection of styles available on the internet. We have precut mesh, billet, and universal DIY grill supplies for all your needs.

www.customcargrills.com

 

+1 if you're concerned about rock punctures put in a screen. Depending on the road condition, most people won't even see one puncture for the life of the car, knock on wood.

If it's behind the grille and not cosmetic then try below. I've used it to protect aux radiator. One layer should be sufficient, but overlapping two layers can give you tighter 1/8" spacing:

Everbilt 1/4 in. Mesh x 2 ft. x 5 ft. 23-Gauge Galvanized Steel Hardware Cloth 308231EB - The Home Depot

Everbilt Galvanized Steel Hardware Cloth is a lightweight, flexible and economical wire meshes fabric with dozens of screening.

www.homedepot.com

 

Unless the designers had a bf, this is generally a non issue. Zillions of cars, a handful of failures. i am not worried about it…

 

last year i ran over a small yellow contruction cone on the freeway at night, and it went through my front bumper, cut through my condenser. i had to replace the bumper+condenser+ get a recharge for the ac. this is after pictures and before pictures

 

last year i ran over a small yellow contruction cone on the freeway at night, and it went through my front bumper, cut through my condenser. i had to replace the bumper+condenser+ get a recharge for the ac. this is after pictures and before pictures View attachment 341100

View attachment 341099

Some people will blame Honda for not designing a bumper cover that could handle a traffic cone.

 

I certainly would. How could a traffic cone do that much damage?!? That had to be a warranty issue.

 

A buddy had his whole front lip ripped off from a truck tire tread on the hwy. lip took most of the beating but the middle grill broke in two and had to get a new one. Without the lip I bet the grill woulda said bye bye, condenser up next! Civic turbo


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A buddy had his whole front lip ripped off from a truck tire tread on the hwy. lip took most of the beating but the middle grill broke in two and had to get a new one. Without the lip I bet the grill woulda said bye bye, condenser up next! Civic turbo


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No, not every bumper. Evidently you have never seen the bumper on a '53 Buick....... at 120 mph that cone would have been knocked across the State line without smudge.

Funny thing about bio friendly plastic bumpers.....if the rats and squirrels don't get them, the traffic cones will.

View attachment 341156

Grrrrrrrr.......

those classic old school car, their bumpers was made of metal, now every bumper is weight under 10lbs, when i recieved my replacement bumper, it was less than 10 lbs and folded, unfold let it sit in the sun for a day that wat the instruction was lol

 

Thanks for the idea's guys.

 

The bumper reinforcement will do its job. The bumper cover is just a plastic cover.

 

I had an old Carmen Ghia back in the day. Great car, but the battery wasn't so I had to back my car up an incline when I parked it and pop the clutch to get it started. If I happened to find myself without an incline, I would start pushing it by myself, and I was lucky enough that others weren't afraid to stop and help me out. Sadly, those days seem long gone.

 

I had an old Carmen Ghia back in the day.

I believe you meant: Karmann Ghia

 

OP never coming back.

 

Yuup scared away now.....

 

I just zip tie a 1/4" piece of plywood to the front of the condenser.
Helps protect the radiator too.

 

I did add a mesh screen behind the grill. It has already paid off as I haven’t seen an increase in engine temperature and no damage to condenser. It caught the Cecedas and large rocks.

 

I did add a mesh screen behind the grill. It has already paid off as I haven’t seen an increase in engine temperature and no damage to condenser. It caught the Cecedas and large rocks.

View attachment 342909 View attachment 342910 View attachment 342911 View attachment 342912

What mesh did you buy? Cut to shape? Zip ties or something?

 

Looks like what I want to do Moneyb.

 

Modengzhe 40 x 13 inch Car Grill Mesh Sheet, Black Painted Aluminum Alloy Grille Mesh Roll, 4 x 8 mm Rhombic-Shape Grids Amazon.com: Modengzhe 40 x 13 inch Car Grill Mesh Sheet, Black Painted Aluminum Alloy Grille Mesh Roll, 4 x 8 mm Rhombic-Shape Grids: Automotive

This is what I bought. It was aluminum and thus will not rust. The size was perfect for the grill and I only trimmed it around the shape and cameras. Zip tied it to the grill. If you look very closely, you can see the zip ties in the picture I attached.

 

Modengzhe 40 x 13 inch Car Grill Mesh Sheet, Black Painted Aluminum Alloy Grille Mesh Roll, 4 x 8 mm Rhombic-Shape Grids Amazon.com: Modengzhe 40 x 13 inch Car Grill Mesh Sheet, Black Painted Aluminum Alloy Grille Mesh Roll, 4 x 8 mm Rhombic-Shape Grids: Automotive

This is what I bought. It was aluminum and thus will not rust. The size was perfect for the grill and I only trimmed it around the shape and cameras. Zip tied it to the grill. If you look very closely, you can see the zip ties in the picture I attached.

Thanks for that. I think i will do this to my Highlander as well simple to keep the bugs out of the condenser and radiator. Certain times of the year can get buggy here.

 

Did you have to remove any parts to install the screen?

 

Yes. There’s a plastic cover over the radiator which has some very easy clips that need to be removed in order to access the area behind the grille. After that it was cutting the piece to shape and gently sliding it into place behind the grill.

 

Thanks much Money b

 

Money b
I installed the same mesh you linked to and it worked perfectly. Thanks for your recommendation.

 

Just read this thread, I have a 2021 highlander and the AC suddenly wasn’t working, had the dealer check it out, a rock or something hit the condenser. With parts and labor they quoted me at $1200! So adding a screen behind the grill seems like a genius idea.

 

Yikes!

 

Cheap and easy

 

you do know blocking off the front grill completely = blocking off air flow to ur radiator and condenser right? there is no air flow to your condenser and radiator = your a/c will not be cold, and your radiator can't cool the coolant and it means overheating ur engine.

 

You missed "DON'T SPEED." High speeds increase the chances of this happening.