Front bumper splintering? + Wheel well destroyed itself
 

Took a relatively short road trip, and just before getting home I went to clean the windshield again with wipers/spray, and no fluid came out. Figuring it was empty, got home and started filling the reservoir, only to realize it was puddling on the ground. Found two areas of damage:


1. The black plastic in the wheel well, at the front right, was all shredded up. [PIC] The hose for the wiper fluid runs through here and it was severed. My first thought was I'd run over something, but on closer inspection, I don't think so. This black plastic piece has been kinda loose for about two years, and I'd keep pushing it back into place, but I didn't see any way to fasten it or why exactly it was coming loose. It looks like it came really loose during my drive and touched the wheel, because there's a big section shredded up and kinda melted looking.


2. Along my front bumper there's these lines running horizontal. [PIC] They're either scratches (I dunno what could scratch it in that direction), or the plastic is splintering. I'm thinking it's the latter. I've certainly scraped my front end on low driveways and such, many times over the years, but these are new.

On my drive I did hit a hell of a rough railroad crossing, but that's all I can think of lately.

Cool story.


How can we help?

I'll wait for a non-douche to respond. Thanks

Can't tell anything from the 1st pic.

The 2nd pic is from hitting something hard enough to flex the paint and crack it.

Thanks Rusty.

So not the plastic itself splintering then. That's good. Maybe a repaint is all it needs then. I didn't realize this sort of thing could happen.

For the wheel well, is this a common issue? My car is pretty gently used and only has like 35k miles, but it started coming loose like two years ago even. Not sure how easy or expensive it would be to get this fixed

From what I can see in the 1st pic. The liner was loose and came back and rubbed on the tire. You have to remove the front bumper and see what else that maybe damaged in that area.

Exactly. I had this happen when I hit a particularly bad bump on the interstate and my old CF lip got decimated. It pulled the fender liner into my tire which ate it up immediately, and damaged my windshield washer fluid line.

You did not ask a question in your story. That's why I asked how we can help. What exactly do you need? Personal attacks aside.

Now here is a question. Had you asked it in your original post, I might have understood what you needed.


Personally, I have never heard of this happening. A body shop visit will give you a better idea what needs to be done to fix it.

I notice that now the wheel well liner on the driver's side is coming loose too. The only thing holding these things in place are a single plastic push-on thing, which is now missing on both sides. The same crappy things used with the plastic around the engine that break so easily. Also it takes a lot of force for me to align the holes, so no wonder the things break - so much sheering force. If this isn't a really common problem I'm shocked. It's a bad design

True, there was no question. Maybe I took your comment the wrong way. I was just looking to see if anyone had similar experience or comments. I suppose it's not a question I need an answer to, as it doesn't affect how I'll handle the situation - I was just making conversation ;)

:tup:

If you have to force the liner into place. Something is out of alignment.

The front fender liners are not held on by a single clip. There are a bunch of them that clip to the chassis, front bumper, and undershroud. The ones that clip to the undershroud are the most likely to break/come loose and they are the ones that generally prevent the liner from hitting the wheel at speed. Gotta make sure everything is aligned properly before you can expect a clip to hold.

Ah yeah, that's what I meant to say is just that only one is holding the center portion there. There's definitely other clips elsewhere.

I'm wondering if the plastic kinda gets warped out of shape due to heat because with there being so many other points where it's held together, there's not much that can move out of alignment otherwise. I don't see any way I can shift something to get the hole to line up without force, since the other points of attachment are fixed in place.

I live in Texas so it gets hot here.... Plus engine/road heat.

Ahh, to get the holes to line up I have to lift up hard, and now I see why -- on both sides of the car there's also a clip missing on top, closer to the shocks. These plastic clips are so garbage

It's not the liner that gets warped. I've certainly never had any issues in the Texas heat. But the heat does get to the clips and they get brittle and break easily. Typically they'll hold together until you remove them at which point they'll break, but sometimes they'll just break on their own from vibration. I replace clips all the time; I rarely am able to reuse clips I remove but even when I can I go ahead and replace them with new ones. I'm guessing I have probably replaced every clip for the fender liners at least 4-5 times over the life of the car; going on about 15 replacements of those three clips in the middle of the undershroud.

Like JAR said:

You can get a bag of these clips off of Amazon. Start with a Google search for Courtesy Nissan in Texas, look through the pictures to find the clips, copy down the Nissan part number, then Google the part number. You should be able to find them on Amazon after that. :tiphat:

Well, I got my last set off of Ebay;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Engine-Spla...5/151260577894

Nissan PN for the fender well clips: 01553-2DR9A $.38 each.

This is really out of my curiosity, you let it loose for 2 year and have no mechanic/shop to look at it or fix it? :confused:

Best link for a front passenger fender liner other than z1 that fits good? Mine ripped off too

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Thanks all, I'll buy em from Amazon next time.

I bought mine at Advance. Turns out the fender liner clips and the engine splash guard clips are different, as they sell both, but they both fit.

I got to looking better and there were several missing. Like three on one side. Or maybe not all holes have clips in from the factory

Haha, yeahhh, I just thought it wouldn't get worse and that I could get it checked out if it did. Figured it'd be $$$ for something small and inconsequential

I was wrong heh. But only slowly wrong ;)

I had the same thing happen to the liner on the driver side recently. It's completely shredded, so I ordered new liner from Z1. It was about $55. I also ordered new hardware. I think I can chalk it up to 9 years of NY roads, autox, and general abuse.

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What sucks is when bits of your bumper are ripped off with the liner when it makes contact with the wheel ;).

The liner and the clips all kind of work together to hold shape. You can lose a few clips, here and there, but they're all basically needed and cheap. I only have the clips break after they've been reused, so I treat them like disposables. Most people use a flathead to pry them open, but I've found this damages them. There's a special tool for popping them out, but at 6$ for a bag of 50 for the clips, it seems not worth it :)