How to Replace Driver's Side Fender Flare

Scraped up my driver's side fender flare pretty bad pulling into a parking structure in my condo complex. I was able to get it looking somewhat okay with touch up paint and some elbow grease, but one of the clips on the fender flare completely broke off (nearest the front bumper). It's also not completely flush against the fender towards the top (see red outline in pic below). What's the easiest fix for this? Where can I find a replacement fender flare in quicksand? I don't do any offroading and I'm not looking to upgrade the flares to those heavy duty bolt on ones.

https://imgur.com/a/NgVSqzQ

 

The clips break easily so could be you just need new clips. Here's the procedure from the FSM so you can see how it attaches--a bunch of clips and some 3M body tape. The flare uses different clips so they're not all the same. You can get a pack from

$19 AUTOLA Fender Flare Clip Kit 75495-35010 75397-35010 for Toyota 4Runner Tacoma RAV4 FJ Cruiser, Replacement Parts for Exterior Door Trim Panel Rear Plastic Fender Rocker Panels

amazon for cheap. Note the color of the aftermarket clips don't necessarily correspond to the color of the OEM clips.

Replacement flares appear to come unpainted as OEM part sites don't show anything but black ones with no color choices. So a replacement one would have to be painted.

 

Thanks. What's the FSM?

 

Factory Service Manual

 

I just used a small piece of double sided tape when mine pues away.

 

Holy shit I just went through this. Big rant incoming. If you’re not a perfectionist and don’t care if the flare looks 100% like it does from the factory when you replace/reinstall it then ignore me.

If you want it to be perfect with the OEM weather stripping you’re in for a nightmare. When you take it off you’ll see that the weather stripping is laid against the outer edge of the fender flare and if you look closely it’s not set perfectly against the lip of the flare at the very edge. It lays against the bottom edge and about 1mm below the lip but .5mm from the first indent in the raised lip along the edge of the flare.

When I first tried it the foam strip fit perfectly against the lip and I figured that’s how they meant for it to be since it just felt like the lip on the flare was designed to have the foam strip against it. Boy was I wrong, when I put it back the foam compressed about the lip and it looked like somebody squeezed some marshmallows against the flare and the body of the truck. So I took it off, broke all the clips, had to reorder them and the new weather stripping which for whatever reason comes in two parts, both very expensive from a dealer, and the best part is they COME FOLDED instead of ROLLED so you have to cut them up because the foam loses its adherence at the folds and is deformed.

So then I tried again and followed the exact same pattern as the original flare and laid it about 1mm from the edge and then I tried it for a 2nd time and while I didn’t have any high spots that looked like marshmallow there were spots where the foam didn’t adhere to the edge of the flare when it got pushed and created gaps where dirt and debris could get through.

I tried it a 3rd time and another $50 later in those fucking foam strips and clips from the dealer and finally got it good enough. It definitely doesn’t look as good as oem and I suspect that the strip as laid by a machine at the factory because there is NO way somebody could be putting those on by hand with less than .5 mm or tolerance to get the foam strip to lay at the exact right spot on the edge of the flare.

Some more tips:
-Buy the material from a wholesale Toyota dealer because they’re EXPENSIVE from the dealer.
-Buy two of the long foam strips and not the small one because it’s the exact same thing as the long one but only a few inches long and more expensive than the long strip…literally makes no sense.
-Do not use the knock off clips from Amazon. I tried them and they weren’t a perfect fit and I could hear a click click when I pressed on the flare after it was put on
-GO THROUGH THE FENDER LINER TO REMOVE THE FRONT 3 CLIPS. Do not pull to get them out because if you have one of the tabs flatten against the edge of the hole in the bumper YOU WILL BEND THE PLASTIC IN THE BUMPER AND THE FLARE WILL HAVE A GAP.

-Use a heat gun in the body of the truck when pressing the flare back on

-remove the exposed backing tape from the foam strips that you put on the flare before you press them onto the fender. Do not use the pull tabs to try and pull the backing tape off after you’ve put the flare on, it will rip the foam strip.
-Go slowly and don’t get frustrated.

-PM me if you have any questions or need the part numbers.

 

How is tape strong enough? What kind of tape?

 

I read it and seems like some good info but I’ll have to read it a few more to make better sense.

post pt# here in the thread for everyone (clips, weatherstrip etc) over pm

Do you happen to have any scrap strip left over? Care to take measurements width and thickness

 

Lol sorry I typed it out kinda quick. Let me know if you need me to clarify anything.


I’ll take a pic of the receipt from Toyota and post it here tomorrow. It has all the part numbers for ever piece you need.

I’ll try and take some measurements of the left over strips I have

 

Appreciate both the parts list and measurements (think I’ll just try and source that myself). I need to fix my passenger side after the dealer butchered the clips and pulled the flare to far out splitting the tape

 

@NomadicCypress Do you happen to have the part number for the fender flare clips? Much appreciated!

 

yeah let me see if I can find the packaging. It was actually a pain in the ass to find the exact numbers for some reason. Definitely buy the OEM ones and not the Amazon knock offs