Customer Reviews

Midwest Wire Mesh Car Barriers

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a 95% great product - it's the 5% that generates so many complaints from buyers. The problem is that while the wire mesh is well made and the clamp fittings are adequate, the hardware provided to assemble the barrier is "worst of the worst" Chinese garbage - bolts that are misshapen and don't fit the clamps, wingnuts too loosely made to ever stay tight, and no washers at all. If you need a solid dog barrier, this is the one to buy... but march down to your local hardware store and buy replacement carriage bolts and wingnuts and add a flat washer and a lock washer for each. Put the flat washer against each clamp, add the lock washer, and spin on the wingnut. You'll be able to assemble the barrier much more easily and tighten it completely and with no loosening. Unless you're going to change the assembly for more than one car, a dozen heavy wire ties cinched around strategic junctions of the panels will help a lot, too - use a pair of pliers to pull them as tight as possible. Why Midwest saves a whole dollar per unit by providing this awful hardware instead of quality pieces is a mystery... but it's a mystery that can be solved.

I read all the reviews before purchasing this product. I'd like to give you my impression of the item....
We've got a Ford Escape and this fits perfectly in the back of the car to stop our black lab from climbing over the back seat and also keeps him from chewing on my seatbelts in the back (he ruined both the passenger side and driver side shoulder harnesses on the back seatbelts before we bought this).

However....when we first installed it, we put it perfectly vertical and that narrowed the space in the back cargo area due to the back seats being at an angle. When it was vertical, it also rattled like one of the other reviewers commented about. So, we changed it to be angled with the back seat and now our dog has more room to lie down and also it no longer rattles. :)

It did get loose once when we were driving down a dirt road and it fell on our dog. We realized even though we thought the barrier was in nice and tight, we had to tighten it even more.

Lastly, the biggest problem is that some of the corners on the barrier are sharp...VERY sharp. Even the lock nuts and butterfly screws have sharp edges. This was obvious once our dog cut his nose on one and bled all over the car. We rectified that by using a grinder to smooth the edges and we glued some rubber on the ends just to ensure they were safe.

All in all, great product for the price. Just wish they'd ensure the edges weren't sharp as this is to be used for a living animal that can hurt itself.

We use this divider in a 2007 Subaru Forester to keep our two dogs separated. (They are not the best of friends.) I have also been told that it is safer (if you get in an accident) to keep your dog in a smaller, more confined space such as this provides. The assembly was fairly straightforward and didn't take too long with two people working together. Some of the wing nuts can get cross threaded if you aren't careful. My biggest complaint is that the long threaded bolts that run from floor to ceiling can get loose very easily and the whole thing rattles very loudly. I am constantly having to readjust this piece (at least once on every long trip). Fortunately, all it takes is a twist of the large wing nuts, but it's still kind of a pain.

A little pain getting it assembled and installed and the clinks and clanks worked out. A second pair of hands would be handy (no pun intended)! But overall, a good barrier for my kitties while traveling long distances. It did adapt well to my 06 RAV4, and with just a turn of the wing nuts, I can remove it and reinstall it without disassembling the whole thing. The padding on the top rail has kept the wire from rubbing against the roof's interior. A good buy.

This is the 3rd pet barrier I've purchased. I had trouble with the tubular style barriers in my SUV's. They would always end up falling over on top of my black labs. I decided to try this Midwest Metal 13 Pet Divider after reading other reviews. I have a Ford Edge and this divider works perfectly. Unlike other reviews, I felt this was extremely easy to assemble and install. It stays solidly in place. I was concerned with rattles, but found that easy to resolve. I put black electrical tape in various spots where the sections overlap. The tape is not noticeable and it definitely does the trick. I couldn't be happier.

This dog barrier works great, is easy to install, and does not rattle. I highly recommend this product, it keeps our active, large, strong dog in the back of our SUV. It only rattles on our bumpy dirt road, but is quiet on pavement.

My wife and I were down to 2 choices, the tubular barrier or this Midwest model. The tubular product would not have suited our needs because our dog's head could go through the tubular bars where he could reach seatbelt straps that he would then destroy. So we decided to go with the Midwest barrier.

The installation was clear-cut and easy. For about the first week there were no rattles. But by the second week, small rattles would occur on rough roads. This was easily fixed by using small black cable ties where ever grating overlapped the base grate. There have been no rattles since. There was also a small place where the sides of the barrier smacked against the plastic window molding when going over speed bumps. This was easily fixed by using a self-adhesive, small (1/2" diameter) circular felt pad at the point of contact on both window moldings. The barrier now makes no noises what so ever. The only other "issue" that we noticed was that one of the grate clamps was in the way of the rear view visibility. Again, this was easily fixed by moving the clamp to the very top of the grate and using black cable ties where the clamp previously held the grates together.

All in all I would highly recommend this product to anyone. You may need to get a few small cable ties, but they work well. Also, this barrier fits perfectly in the back of our 2009 Rav-4.

I bought this item for my Toyota Highlander to use for a 2-day trip with 2 cats (moving to another state). The first problem was that this divider, even at its widest setting, is really too small for my Highlander. There is no way to make is fit securely against the sides of the car. I thought if I strategically placed rolled up towels on the sides that it would make it more secure, but that didn't work at all---the cats were through it before I got to the end of my street. The next problem is that the middle section of the divider does not go all the way up to the roof. I cannot figure out why it was designed this way---both side sections go all the way up. Once I finally got enough towels crammed in the sides to keep the cats from getting through there, I thought all was good, but it took them no time at all to climb up the middle of the divider and squeeze themselves through the opening at the top. In addition, the first bump I hit, the whole thing fell down, so I had to tie it to the back of each headrest. That kept it up, but didn't solve the problem of the cats getting through. Needless to say, I drove 770 miles with 2 cats in my lap!

Having said that, I think it would work fine for dogs, or maybe even very fat,lazy cats!

The pet barrier was easy to put together, works very well and fit my Jeep Cherokee Laredo really well when installed. However, there was a 2' piect of all-thread missing. There were supposed to be 2 pieces and there was only one. I went to Lowe's and bought another piect and put it together. Am pleased with the results.

After I installed this I took my kitten for a test run to find any escape routes,(she is only 31/2 lbs) she did find a couple that were easily fixed with a rolled up beach towel. It did not rattle at all. Now I can travel safely from Mid Michigan to Southern Florida with my two cats.