I have removed my lower engine panel to allow access to the engine compartment. I decided to leave it off a while. When you do this the side plastic panels under the car have no support. I built up some connecting rods to fix this. Here are pictures of the panel I removed. I now have easy access to this area. I am currently checking my gas mileage without the panel. Here is a picture of the panel.

 

Here is a picture of the braces for that tie the lower plastic panels together now.

 

Cool pics. However, there is nothing protecting the oil can if something should hit it underneath so yeah put it back on soon as you can.

 

How difficult would it be to make a door in the shroud for filter access without pulling the whole thing off?

 

You still have to access the oil drain bolt. You could cut an opening just enough access provided you reattach it to the shroud.

For me oil changes will happen every 6 months so it's not too big of a deal to take it off and put it back on when done.

I've done this a few times with my 2012 Civic Hybrid. Although they made the access door just big enough to access the oil filter and drain bolt. And only like 8 screws to deal with.

 

I had a Panzer Plate on my '00 New Beetle TDI (¼" aluminum panel that replaced the flimsy OEM plastic shield), and it had a hole under the oil drain plug with a pop-in panel to keep road dirt out while driving. The TDI engine had a cartridge-style oil filter removed from the top, where our Fits have a spin-on removed from below… so I don't see any good way around having to remove the panel for each oil change unless you were to cut a large hole and fab up a removable panel held in with dzus fasteners or something.

es