Wheel Well - Liners

I did a search on here and was surprised not to find a post on the issue below. If there is one that I've overlooked maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

I travel some pretty sticky mud. It gathers up on the wheel well liners (very heavy) and has pulled the factory attachments out. Before I could get to a wash and repair the "very" thin plastic that is the well liner the wheels chew up the liners. There are numerous issues that pop up when you run the truck without well liners not to mention the amount of mud and rocks that accumulate in the rear quarters on the truck. I believe they do offer important protection for the truck long-term. I did manage to salvage the rear fuel side (although it was damaged) and zip tied it into place and covered everything up with duct tape to help protect the plastic rivets that hold these together. Toyota OEM liner replacement are $185 each plus extra for any new rivets required!

Does anyone know of an aftermarket upgrade for these parts?

Thanks

 

there's not an after market upgrade because there's nothing wrong with them, they're designed to deflect rocks etc from hitting paint and keeping mud out, they're not really designed to be pulled down by any weight, i'd cut some holes in it and zip tie it back up

 

You're probably going to have to fabricate something yourself. See if you have a buddy that can lend you theirs as a template.

Other than that, your best bet is to wash the wheel wells frequently to stop mud from building up and causing problems.

 

Have never heard of this problem.

 

If I had known they were $185/ea, I wouldn't have thrown them all in the trash!

 

I remember seeing someone (Stacey David???) recommending spraying WD-40 on the liners to help keep mud from sticking. I can't say whether it works or not.

 

get a can of that new rustoleum never wet or whatever and try that

 

You might could get a body shop to fab some metal ones for the price of the oems. I tore one out of an eclipse turbo I had and replaced the whole wheel well plastic for like $20 from the dealership. can't believe they cost so much.

 

Are you talking about these?



If so, I have a passenger side I could ship out to you. I tore one up because I forgot to screw it back in after changing out the fog lights.

 

Sounds like it's time to get a 4'x8' sheet of .032 aluminum from a metal supply house, a set of aircraft snips, and get to work on fabricating some new ones. Access to a sheet metal roller would help with getting the curve right, but .032 is thin enough to work by hand. A shear would also help with getting squared cuts, but again it's not critical for this application. A local sheet metal shop might be willing to make the necessary rough cuts and curves for you - check with some of the local HVAC outfits. Just tell them it's flashing for something and they won't give it a 2nd thought.

I haven't dug deeply into the Tacoma attachment points, other than the ones closest to the front bumper, but my wife's Matrix had a similar problem. I ended up replacing all the plastic clips and plastic screws with stainless hardware, including good fender washers and some blue loctite. Haven't had an issue since then (going on 5 years with the fix in place).

 

Baby oil works wonders for keeping mud from sticking in there...spray it all in the areas that get caked with mud and it will help with clean up...

 

I do think they are a little under engineered in the rear for the type of abuse they can take. For light off road and pavement there is no issue and the fronts are fine. I use the truck for work and travel a pretty rough gravel road for about 40km (25 miles it takes me an hour to travel) that turns into greasy mud for about the last 20 minutes. After the first trip in they were done but I do think greasing them up a little would've helped as well as reinforcing the rivets and protecting them with a little duct tape or upgrading them to bolts would likely solve the issue. Running without them causes the water and mud to leak out through the underside of the caps on the truck bed as well cause damage to the other plastic parts, clips etc. not to mention the fuel lines. Having the deluge of material hit the underside of the box has also caused one of the storage boxes in the truck bed to come loose and now its leaking into the box. My coworker has a '13 and I noticed they have eliminated the bed pockets. I did warn him and he's done a little reinforcing that has helped. Although I don't recommend taking them out if anyone wants to get rid of a pair I'll take them. I'm up here in Canada but would expect that maybe they are a little cheaper south of the border like everything else.

 

I complete understand this problem! The heavy Alberta mud here in Canada really is heavy and hard on the wheel wells, I have learned this the hard way. I am going to get the dealer to repair like new and reinforce the wheel wells with zip ties, as the fasteners and wheel well lining was not designed for heavy cakey mud. Even if I clean out mid day during use it has still caused me problems. I will also experiment with WD40/baby oil, because it is clear to me now this will be an ongoing problem if I continue to use as is.

 

I did end up setting 2 rivets through the liner into the box portion directly on top of the rear liner and It ended up being the solution for holding the liner up when it's caked with that heavy clay/mud your referring to. When I drilled the pilot hole I went a little too far on the first one and ended up going through the box to the bed, not a huge deal but if your careful you can easily penetrate just that first layer where the rivet is going to attach without drilling into the box. I did try the zip ties to replace the cheap plastic rivets that hold the liner to the body panel but rocks smash those things regularly. If you can, I would replace all of the plastic rivets with metal ones. Even then the thin well liner wants to pull apart where it attaches. Also, I've also noticed that my front bumper had come off it's mount somewhere as it sags a bit right at the back at the wheel well. Probably another place where addition reinforcement is needed for the heavy mud.

 

A 5lug guy bought those at Rock auto for 50 bucks each side. I don't know how to share trends but its called 6 lug fender liners. In 5 lug trends.

 

In my dirt bike days when we knew we were going to be riding muddy clay based trails, we would use Pam , the non stick cooking spray. Works like a charm.

The junk your driving in will always require some cleaning before and after to prevent build up and possible damage to your truck.