Has anyone removed the cover under their vehicle permanantly ? Any dangers doing this ?

Some of the flat panels on the bottom (like the one that covers the oil filter and drain plug) serve no purpose other than being in the way, so I removed mine. However, this isn't the case for all of them. One of the panels along the inside of my passenger side wheel well was coming out (the stupid push pins came out) so I removed it. Shortly after that I was driving in the rain and the battery light on my instrument panel kept coming on and going off. As it turned out, with the panel removed, whenever I hit standing water, my right front tire would spray water on one or more the pulleys my serpentine belt rode on and would cause the belt to hydroplane on the alternator pulley, causing it to slip, which was triggering a charging system fault light. It turns out the panel I removed prevented this from happening, so I re-installed the panel...problem solved...I wish they'd use something better, or more secure than these push pins to hold these panels in place....push pins can be convenient, but I think they're over used in today's vehicles...
 
Here is the area that I will be covering up. You can see the two bolts in the front that will go through the splash guard. Still waiting for it on Amazon and will install it in the new year. The A/C belt is the lowest belt, from the A/C compressor to the crank pulley.

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The splashguard arrived in good order. We’ll install it next time my son brings his truck over.

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Here is the area that I will be covering up. You can see the two bolts in the front that will go through the splash guard. Still waiting for it on Amazon and will install it in the new year. The A/C belt is the lowest belt, from the A/C compressor to the crank pulley.

View attachment 37934
Here is a pic of the the splash shield I installed. Sort of like a before and after. The shield came from Summit. In this photo it looks like metal, but it’s black plastic. It’s actually 3 dimensional and it's pretty obvious part of its duty is to make sure the area behind it is a low air pressure area to increase the efficiency of the electric fan attached to the radiator. Enjoy.

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On the Rubicon and Tahoe you can change oil/filter with shields on …
Fusion Hybrid? Have to remove a kitchen table. 😷
Grabbed this handy set yesterday at O’Reilly’s

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The only ones I remove are the ones that cover the oil drain plug and filter...
 
On the Rubicon and Tahoe you can change oil/filter with shields on …
Fusion Hybrid? Have to remove a kitchen table. 😷
Grabbed this handy set yesterday at O’Reilly’s

View attachment 58720
My BMW has shield. But, it has nice “doors” to open to change oil. Front differential is protected by steel plate that is separate from plastic shield, so one has to drop only that to change fluid. Gear box has its own shield so, just drop that.
Very practical. VW on other hand, I need to take out some 12-14 screws to get shield out.
Toyota doesn’t have anything under, which is ridiculous considering how low it sits.
 
My BMW has shield. But, it has nice “doors” to open to change oil. Front differential is protected by steel plate that is separate from plastic shield, so one has to drop only that to change fluid. Gear box has its own shield so, just drop that.
Very practical. VW on other hand, I need to take out some 12-14 screws to get shield out.
Toyota doesn’t have anything under, which is ridiculous considering how low it sits.
Amazing the difference sometimes … obviously the Rubicon is well protected underneath … yet it’s a dream to change fluid on. Only the X-fer case fluid will drain on the steel guard … but that heavy Reynolds foil works for that …
 
Even the cheap plastic ones could deflect debris from hitting something important. If you're a risk taker, the cheap plastic ones are probably (mostly) fine to remove. Probably not a huge risk on those unless you encounter a lot of debris in the freeway where you live. I don't find them that annoying on my Toyota and Subaru. A couple stupid plastic screw clips that are easy to remove, drop it, do work, put it back. Maybe 10 minutes of annoyance. I'm sure some cars are worse.
 
I’d be leery... my 300’s panel had ducts to direct air into the front brakes. Might get some weird wind noise as well depending on the vehicle.
My MIL’s escape had ducts as well. I wouldn’t remove that one. I’d be more apt to do so on the F150.

Put the correct fastener bit in a 1/4 impact and zip them on and off with no problem. Super quick.
 
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I've removed the splash shield on my M35 about 20 times for DIY oil changes. It has 16 freaking bolts so I quickly started using a Dewalt cordless drill with a 10 mm socket. The shield still is a pain in the neck but it serves a purpose.
 
Our Mazda5 has a well designed cover and has a hole to reach in to reflace the filter and a cover drsign to allow addess to drain plug. I do have to remove the cover to drain the tranny and access the axles.
 
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