Grille (motor vehicle)

A grille is mounted on most vehicles in front of the radiator grille.

Initially, the grid was used to keep the earlier mostly unpaved roads rocks and debris from the actual cooler. A contamination of the radiator fins would lead to the deterioration of the cooling effect and thus trigger the risk of the engine overheating; -hitting in the cooling fins stones can lead to damage and leakage.

The air intake of most modern vehicles is now below the grille, so that they have become a decorative element of the vehicle design. In times of very similar form and similar languages ​​concepts they are intended to demonstrate a certain independence of the brand. They not only increase through the mounted there logo. Often the grille determined as part of the vehicle front, the typical appearance of the vehicles of a particular brand. Examples would be the BMW kidney grille, the Audi single-frame and the Scudetto at Alfa Romeo.

The design of the radiator grille moves the tension between design, its function as a cooling air intake and its aerodynamics, on which depends the air resistance of the vehicle and thus its fuel consumption. Since about the beginning of the 2000s, the grille grow with many new models, which worsens by the turbulence of the air flow aerodynamics. One approach to reduce this problem is in the radiator grille, which have flaps that close at higher speeds, so that the aerodynamics are better then.