Apparently no one here has had a rock get lodged in the cam gear, take a chunk out and stretch the belt so it will retard cam timing 3 teeth and stall the motor. I have, keep the damn covers on.
I had mine off on my 00ek, but then again I lost the lower half and thats why...After about a month of debris spitting up on the hood and all over the engine bay I wanted to put them back on. Note to self: don't throw away any car parts no matter what your awesome friends say
I'm missing like two covers on my cover set, I'm missing the cylinders cover on the V6 model and the timing belt cover ... I have the coil and throttle body cover =] heh