Missing Active Grille Shutters.

[lskarha]

We recently received our 2015 Edge Titanium AWD v6 3.5 with everything except the towing package. While checking things out under the hood I notice the grill shutters are missing. I assumed they were on all 2015 Edge models. (Most reviews and specs listed them.)

 

I found this buried on the Ford website. “Active Grille Shutters: Available on select models to help counter air resistance.” So what models do not have the shutters? I would assume it’s the 3.5 v6 engine that deletes the shutters. I guess they figure someone that orders that engine does not care about fuel economy. Or does the 3.5 v6 need better cooling? I was disappointed that this was not installed on our top of the line Edge. The mounting frames with the holes for the shutters is install but not the actual shutters.

 

So what models/engines have the shutters?

I know the 2.0 EcoBoost does.

What about the 2.7 Sport?

 

Can someone check their 3.5 v6 and look for the shutters. (Google “Ford Edge Active Grille Shutters images” for pics of what you are looking for.)

 

Thanks,
-Lee

[27Sport]

The Active Shutters are only available on the 2.0L and 2.7L. They improve fuel economy by such a miniscule amount it's not worth worring about it. They really only shut at highway speeds so city mileage is not even affected.

[bronzeEdge]

I think the 3.5 V6 is an older engine developed before active grille shutters came to Ford vehicles.

[Waldo]

It's all about the fuel economy label game. Grill shutters do make a noticeable difference, they can improve the Cd by up to about 0.015, which can be about 5%. But depending on where the rest of the car stacks up, it may not be enough different to flip the fuel economy label. For example if the vehicle is testing at say 23.8 mpg, the grill shutters might bump it up to say 24.3, but either way it still rounds to 24, so there's no real incentive for Ford to spend the ~$50 to install them on that model.

[cds71]

The 2.7 MKX does not have the active grill shutters as well.....I looked after my wife and I test drove one.....I asked the sales person and they had no clue what I was talking about.

[POWERSTROKE]

I think the 3.5 V6 is an older engine developed before active grille shutters came to Ford vehicles.

Shutters were used on heavy-duty trucks back in the 1920's, 30's, 40's, 50's, & early 1960's to regulate coolant tempurature, also on construction and agricultural equipment for the same purpose.

 

If shutters worked on the crude old diesel engines produced all those years ago they surely would work on the 3.5L V-6.

 

The extrordinarily small increase in mpg that shutters would make from aerodynamic drag reductions would barely make up for the increased heat stress from drastically higher under hood temps. A 245 HP engine needs lots of cooling air whether it's a twin turbo 2.0L direct injection gasoline engine or a 900 cubic inch diesel engine designed & built in the 1930's or 40's.

[enigma-2]

.....I looked after my wife and I test drove one.....

Yea, I test drove my wife as well. LOL

[Waldo]

The extrordinarily small increase in mpg that shutters would make from aerodynamic drag reductions would barely make up for the increased heat stress from drastically higher under hood temps. A 245 HP engine needs lots of cooling air whether it's a twin turbo 2.0L direct injection gasoline engine or a 900 cubic inch diesel engine designed & built in the 1930's or 40's.

 

A 245hp engine only needs lots of cooling air when it's making 245hp, and when it is, the grill shutters open up. When cruising down the highway requiring only around 40HP or so, the airflow leaking through and around the shutters is more than enough. It's not like they are simply open or close either, they can be opened at various degrees, so engine temperatures are always right where they need to be.

 

You may never be able to measure the difference from one tank of fuel to the next, but over hundreds of thousands of vehicles driven hundreds of thousands of miles, it absolutely is a significant fuel savings.

[CND_EDGE]

I have the active grill shutters on my Escape. I like that fact that they close on the highway which helps to keep rocks and other debris from hitting the radiator. I also find my engine bay stays much cleaner.

[POWERSTROKE]

A 245hp engine only needs lots of cooling air when it's making 245hp, and when it is, the grill shutters open up. When cruising down the highway requiring only around 40HP or so, the airflow leaking through and around the shutters is more than enough. It's not like they are simply open or close either, they can be opened at various degrees, so engine temperatures are always right where they need to be.

 

You may never be able to measure the difference from one tank of fuel to the next, but over hundreds of thousands of vehicles driven hundreds of thousands of miles, it absolutely is a significant fuel savings.

I've run winter fronts on EVERY Ford pickup I've owned for the last 35 years. Effectively the same thing as your shutters, only nonadjustable while moving. You can see the effects of following a truck, the temp gauge goes up even with the reduced load of less aerodynamic drag. You also reduce cooling airflow.

 

Ford has to assume that 245 HP engines in vehicles WILL BE REQUIRED TO PRODUCE 245 HP and size the cooling system accordingly. And under all sorts of conditions from fridgid arctic cold to hot tropical or desert heat. Vehicle moving at maximum speed or stationary.

 

Still not buying the idea that shutters on a grill of an SUV will improve mpg enough to warrant the expense or increase in vehicle weight. Making the body out of aluminum like the new '15 F-150's would improve mpg of the EDGE ten or more times what the shutters ever possibly could! Also increase the MSRP too. But UPS has found out aluminum bodies do pay off in the long run. That's why all their package cars have had aluminum bodies for 50 years.

 

A MILLION drops of gasoline is about 6.6 gallons. If every Edge saves ten drops of gasoline over it's life time due to grill shutters, 100,000 Edges would save 6.6 gallons of gas. Hardly seems worth the effort & expense.

[akirby]

You're ignoring CAFE impacts where a few tenths of one MPG can have a big effect. If it had no effect then Ford wouldn't be using them.

 

The PCM will maintain proper engine temp by opening the shutters all the way or part of the way so it's not going to have any impact to engine cooling either.

 

The impact is small and as Waldo points out isn't worth the cost on some models so that's why it only shows up on certain models and certain vehicles.

[Vadimus]

We did not have much cold weather here yet but I already saw my Edge having shutters almost closed while warming up, and I really happy that it makes my engine warm up a bit faster.

 

But haters are free to hate, why not

[Waldo]

I've run winter fronts on EVERY Ford pickup I've owned for the last 35 years. Effectively the same thing as your shutters, only nonadjustable while moving. You can see the effects of following a truck, the temp gauge goes up even with the reduced load of less aerodynamic drag. You also reduce cooling airflow.

 

Ford has to assume that 245 HP engines in vehicles WILL BE REQUIRED TO PRODUCE 245 HP and size the cooling system accordingly. And under all sorts of conditions from fridgid arctic cold to hot tropical or desert heat. Vehicle moving at maximum speed or stationary.

 

Still not buying the idea that shutters on a grill of an SUV will improve mpg enough to warrant the expense or increase in vehicle weight. Making the body out of aluminum like the new '15 F-150's would improve mpg of the EDGE ten or more times what the shutters ever possibly could! Also increase the MSRP too. But UPS has found out aluminum bodies do pay off in the long run. That's why all their package cars have had aluminum bodies for 50 years.

 

A MILLION drops of gasoline is about 6.6 gallons. If every Edge saves ten drops of gasoline over it's life time due to grill shutters, 100,000 Edges would save 6.6 gallons of gas. Hardly seems worth the effort & expense.

You can just make up your own numbers to justify your opinions, but the engineers that design the system use real numbers from actual testing. The numbers I've seen are that grill shutters can give around a 0.1 to 0.2MPG improvement. The difference between a 24mpg Edge and a 24.1mpg Edge over 150,000 miles is about 26 gallons or about $65 at $2.50/gallon. That offsets the roughly $45 price of the shutter.

 

Making the Edge out of Aluminum would cost about $1500, so it would need to produce fuel savings 33 times better than the grill shutters. So it would need to save 3.3MPG to be of equal benefit, and that's probably about what it would deliver.

[akirby]

If you don't count the hundreds of millions it would take to retrofit the plant and line up aluminum suppliers........

[jacksprat]

We did not have much cold weather here yet but I already saw my Edge having shutters almost closed while warming up, and I really happy that it makes my engine warm up a bit faster.

 

But haters are free to hate, why not

So..... your Edge would actually shudder.....without the shutters?

[omar302]

Another design point of view might be because the 2.0L is weaker, so at highway speeds the wind drag have higher effect than on the more powerful V6. Also, as far as I know, the transmission on the 2.0 has different ratios, so the slightly reduced drag at highway speed has a bigger impact on the 2.0 (with its tranny ratios) than on the 3.5/2.7L with their transmission ratios.

[All Hat No Cattle]

 

A MILLION drops of gasoline is about 6.6 gallons. If every Edge saves ten drops of gasoline over it's life time due to grill shutters, 100,000 Edges would save 6.6 gallons of gas. Hardly seems worth the effort & expense.

Sorry, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) disagrees with you. Where, exactly, did you get the figure of "If every Edge saves ten drops of gasoline over it's life time due to grill shutters" ?

 

Anyway, here are the facts.

 

http://papers.sae.org/2014-01-0633/

 

Click on Preview Technical Paper on the right of the page. Seems that grill shutters work to improve range even on electric cars, as well as with gas engine cars.

[akirby]

It's simple aerodynamics - reducing CD requires less power to move the vehicle at higher speeds regardless of the power source.

[POWERSTROKE]

Sorry, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) disagrees with you. Where, exactly, did you get the figure of "If every Edge saves ten drops of gasoline over it's life time due to grill shutters" ?

 

Anyway, here are the facts.

 

http://papers.sae.org/2014-01-0633/

 

Click on Preview Technical Paper on the right of the page. Seems that grill shutters work to improve range even on electric cars, as well as with gas engine cars.

That "technical paper" read more like a promotional advertisement. It seemed to promote the reduction of CO2, and it's structural attributes. And the shutter's ability to protect the heat exchangers from damage, and hasten cold engine warmup.

 

From looking at the last couple illustrations, Ford put the shutters on the Edge at the LEAST helpful position for reducing coefficient of drag. And for those of us in areas that get snow, the shutter vanes being located right behind the grill will surely cause the shutters to ice up solid.

 

Personally, I can't wait for my shutters to freeze up solid with snow/ice and kill the shutter servo, and then I confirm this $45 cost for the shutters mentioned above.... Think I'll use that opportunity to lighten the front end of my car by a couple pounds!

 

Shutters & curtains were used on farm tractors clear back in the 1900's, 19-Teens & '20's to heat the engine & induction system up hotter to vaporize the heavier fuels like Kerosene & distillate, even oil, to allow it to burn more efficiently. It's 100 year old technology that's been computerized and made electrically operated. Sorry, But I'm not impressed. Dad used a burlap bag over the grill of his tractors in winter in the 1940's, '50's & '60's. I've had a winter front for EVERY Ford pickup I've owned since 1980, had to make the first one, they weren't available factory-made until about 1985.

[Vadimus]

Wow, that's a whole blast of hatred

 

Speaking of being frozen/stuck - shutters servo is more than just stepper motor, it provides ECU with a full feedback including being overloaded.

[POWERSTROKE]

 

Speaking of being frozen/stuck - shutters servo is more than just stepper motor, it provides ECU with a full feedback including being overloaded.

WOW, Now I'm happy for the stepper motor!

 

One summer when I was in college I drove a 1966 White ready-mix cement truck that had shutters. All open or all closed, mounted right out in the front of the grill. The temp gauge never moved from normal operating temp.

 

The quicker engine warm-up with an electrically operated shutter system is neat. I know for a fact that improves MPG, I've seen that every winter all winter with my pickups. But there's NO WAY a few square feet of naugahyde over the grill improved the coefficient of drag on a full size 4WD pickup!

 

If Ford would have done a better job of making the Edge's front end aerodynamic and incorporating the shutters into that design, I could see coefficient of drag reduction induced MPG improvements. As a Formula 1 fan I HATE to use NASCAR as an example, but look what NASCAR crew chiefs do to the grills of their race cars for qualifying.....with duct tape.

Edited November 14, 2015 by POWERSTROKE

[All Hat No Cattle]

 

But there's NO WAY a few square feet of naugahyde over the grill improved the coefficient of drag on a full size 4WD pickup!

I know it seems counterintuitive, and my engineering knowledge is minimal, to say the least. But, I read.

 

So the engineers say that you will get less resistance if you divert the air around the grill and down the (aerodynamic) sides, rather than having it go through the grill and then bounce off the firewall, finally exiting under the vehicle and causing even more turbulence there. That few square feet of naugahyde did improve the CD.

 

Think about it. Isn't that one reason we have front spoilers?

 

Do you think that Ford, and everyone else, have not run these shutters through a wind tunnel.

 

As far as that SAE article being an ad for CO and CO2 emissions, well, the only way to do that is to burn less fuel. Grill shutters help to accomplish that goal.

 

Or, you could believe that Ford put them on the Edge to make gas mileage worse. Yeah, that's it.

[punch-card]

For what it worth, my Sonata Hybrid has Active Grill shutters in order to improve aerodynamics. And it has a very low drag coefficient.

It's all about the wind tunnels

 

[POWERSTROKE]

I know it seems counterintuitive, and my engineering knowledge is minimal, to say the least. But, I read.

 

So the engineers say that you will get less resistance if you divert the air around the grill and down the (aerodynamic) sides, rather than having it go through the grill and then bounce off the firewall, finally exiting under the vehicle and causing even more turbulence there. That few square feet of naugahyde did improve the CD.

 

Think about it. Isn't that one reason we have front spoilers?

 

Do you think that Ford, and everyone else, have not run these shutters through a wind tunnel.

 

As far as that SAE article being an ad for CO and CO2 emissions, well, the only way to do that is to burn less fuel. Grill shutters help to accomplish that goal.

 

Or, you could believe that Ford put them on the Edge to make gas mileage worse. Yeah, that's it.

STUDY THE CHART SHOWING THE THREE POSSIBLE SHUTTER LOCATIONS! Location #1 has the greatest reduction of drag. That's where NASCAR crew chiefs put duct tape on grills for qualifying. Location #2 is where FMC put them, and drag reduction is about half of position #1 IIRC. I don't think position #3 had a percentage of reduction shown. All Ford's chosen location does is create a high pressure area right in front of the grill which in effect makes the grill appear to be bigger than it actually is to oncoming air. They should have mounted the shutters in FRONT of the grill so the airflow flowed smoothly, LAMINAR AIRFLOW, up over the grill, hood, windshield, roof, rear top spoiler, etc.

 

If you would look under your Edge you would see a bottom cover under the engine to help reduce the amount of air getting up around the engine and causing drag, and establishing a flow pattern to evacuate hot air from under the hood.

 

Only about 1/3 of the heat energy of the gasoline burned by a car engine is used to propel the car. About a third is expelled as hot exhaust. The other third is radiated out of the engine via the cooling system, engine oil, etc. You do NOT want that heat to accumulate.

 

Ohhhh, spoilers, on most cars actually INCREASE drag, they are intended to reduce aerodynamic lift, which keeps the car's tires remaining firmly planted on the ground for maximum traction for acceleration, stopping & turning. As a FORMULA 1 race fan, a car with the lowest down force package can hit 235-240+ mph. Same car with maximum down force spoiler package can't even break 200 mph.

[akirby]

If you keep insisting that you know more about vehicle drag and aerodynamics than Ford's engineers then nobody is going to take you seriously.