Rock Chips

For those who wheel or take it off road a lot, what do you do to prevent rock chips? Every time I go off road, rocks and pebbles get stuck in between the treads and sling up towards the side the truck (mainly the bottom of front two doors). Should I put my front mudflaps on when going off road or is there some sort of clear bra I can put at the bottom of the doors?

 

Mudflats will help. But the 3m film is your best bet for complete protection. You could also get some protection from rock rails.

 

I have N-Fab's step bars. I'll look into 3m clear bra. Do they make tacoma specific ones?

 

I actually just bought some replacement mud flaps since I am having a similar issue. The flaps I bought were cheap ones at Autozone, but seem like they will fit the bill perfectly. They are about 1/2 - 2/3 the length of the factory mud flaps, and are fiberglass reinforced rubber. They seem stiff enough to handle a decent size rock, but still very flexible and "rubbery" so they won't get caught on things. They came with cheap mounting hardware, so I am off to the store to pick up some decent stuff tomorrow. Like most aftermarket flaps, you have to drill into the fender to mount them, but they only cost $30, so if they don't work, oh well. I will put a picture or two up once I get them mounted tomorrow.

 

Here's the ones I ended up with, like I said in my earlier post, $30. They are not full length, so do not offer full protection. I tested it out on a gravel road today that was causing quite a few dings without any flaps, and I didn't hear any after a couple of miles. The issue I was having was rock chips in the 6-8 inches right behind the wheels. These are low enough that they give that area coverage, but as you can see, are not wide enough to accommodate wider tires (I am running 265). The nice thing is that they are very flexible, so between that, and being slightly shorter, they shouldn't catch nearly as bad as anything like the stock flaps.



Also, if you go the flaps route, check out rokblokz. $120.00 for good length, slightly wider, flexible flaps with Tacoma mounting hardware.