Chevy Cruze active grille shutter operation/wiring
 

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know specifically how the motors operate on active shutters? Is it a 3 wire design where giving 12 v to one wire opens them, 12v to another wire closes them, one wire for ground? (Thats how some old pop up headlights work).

Or is it a more complicated stepper motor, PWM control?
I don’t have one in front of me to run tests with.

I know some Cruze gen1s and gen2 diesel’s comes with active grill shutters. My 2017 is a gas engine, I figured I could mount the shutter, then wire up my own relay/switch and use it in very specific circumstances. It looks like it will physically mount right up to any of the gen2s without fabrication.

Thanks!

shutter operation
 

In 2013, GM published an advertorial for the Chevy Malibu aerodynamics, which included the 'automatic' grille-shutters. Good for delta-Cd 0.007.
I'm guessing that, there's a threshold voltage from a temperature sensor which the ECU recognizes as the 'trigger' for the motor actuator to 'open.'
And then another voltage at which the ECU is satisfied, signaling for 'closure.'
An official GM shop manual would have the data.
In a most primitive setting, the shutters might just respond the the same voltage assigned to the electric cooling fan. They should be wired to fail-open.
A local wrecking lot might have a rear-ended Cruze with a complete front clip that you could examine, and or, salvage parts from. Or E-bay, once you know what you need.

Good points, I agree that it most likely is designed to fail open, something I would like to incorporate if I can get one to mess with. And yea the service manual is a good idea to see how a unit is tested, at the least checking resistance etc should help with understanding it’s operation. I figure at the root it runs in 12v (not driven directly from a 5v ECM wire) and it should only be open or closed, so hopefully it’s quick. I don’t have much time for junkyard runs these days like I used to do I’ll have to keep searching for any info I can before buying one.

So I did some more digging and the shutters are controlled by a LIN communication protocol that goes directly to the ECM, meaning I can't quickly wire it up on my own. My guess is there is a small microcontroller that talks on LIN and then goes through a FET to activate the ground connection on the 12v side of the motor with two pins as options (12V through pin 1 moves the shutters open, pin 2 closes them). And looking at pictures of the assembly, it seems the motor and control are packaged together, meaning I would have to carefully crack it open to find the 12V motor contacts. Not something I am able to risk right now, maybe in a few months I'll revisit this idea, and mess around with a partial grill block that covers about the same amount of area as the shutters for the time being.