I have snow on the road for almost a month.

Everytime I drive my lovely Max home or to school, I notice there are a lot of snow collected in the wheel wells. Once they get frozen, they can be very dangerous b/c when I go through bumps, wheels go up and hit the snow/ice. b/c the snow/ice are so hard, you actually hit your wheel wells.

Why it is very dangerous? When I look into the rear driver side wheel well, there is a gas tank filling hose which you will hit if you have snow/ice in the wheel well.

How does this happen? The splash guards which won't allow snow and ice getting out. And I looked at other cars, they didn't have snow/ice in the wheel wells b/c they didn't have splash guards.

btw. getting ice and snow out of wheel well is such a pain. I ended up pouring warm water on them..

 

was never a problem for me during 4 DC winters.
never heard anyone else have a problem

 

Hasn't happened to me and it's been snowing on and off for three weeks now.

 

Im having the same problem...

 

It may just be the angle of the pic or just me, but it looks as if your tires are extremely close to the wheel well and splash guard trim??? If so, that could be your problem.

 

....after a drive through the snow and that collects, once I park...I tend to just bang it out with my ice scraper before it can become solid and a problem....

 

I had a similar issue last winter, but I do what Prophecy99 does and luckily here in KS we have hot water car washes. So I wash my cars no less than 2 times a week to keep them grit and grime free.

 

en...these are stock, so it can be everyone's problem..

 

Its happening to me, doesnt really seem to be all that big of a problem though. I used a broken hockey stick shaft to get that snow/ice out..

 

Seems like a strange problem, I haven't had this problem. What kind of tires are you running? Are they snows? Maybe it's the tread pattern that's throwing all the snow up that way instead of channeling it out to the sides?

 

That's not a real problem, if you clean your car off properly when it snows you'd be kicking as much of that stuff out of the wheel wells as possible like I do...haven't had any problems yet and have never had a problem with any other vehicle with splash guards.

 

I have snow build up just as jasonmax describes. I agree it's hard to get out due to the splash guards. Like others have said, you need something to dig it out. Simply kicking the splash guard/fender area doesn't do it. Well unless you give it a really good whack but then you risk damaging the car .

However, I've never had an issue with "bumping" and the build up causing any real problems. Eventually the snow/ice gets so heavy it falls out on its own.

 

That's what I do and have never had a problem.

 

I'm running on Mud+Snow tires.

 

I don't have patient to knock them out, I just pour warm water on it..

 

i never really had a problem with it. just scrape it off with the snow scraper whenever you can.

 

Happens with my car as well, but I don't worry about it.

You don't have patience to knock ice out of the wheel wells, but you have patience to go inside, wait for hot water, go back out and pour it over the ice?

 

There is a fuel filler shield that was omitted from the 2002/2003 Maxima that you can buy that will fill that area. I can't recall the part number but just ask your nissan parts store rep. The shield attaches with a few clips.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing.

 

That's when water heater does the best job..

 

thanks a lot

 

Originally Posted by Prophecy99
....after a drive through the snow and that collects, once I park...I tend to just bang it out with my ice scraper before it can become solid and a problem....




same for me. i am **** about keeping the slush and ice off my car. A little preventive medicine goes a long way

 

You're in luck! I found the receipt with part numbers:

Protector-Filler 17290-2Y000
Clip (you need4) 01553-09321

 

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, with your first snowfall (10-12 inches). It was bumping hard even over very small bumps.

Took me a few minutes to figure it out. I went through worse snowfalls before with my other cars, and this never happened.

 

This happened to me this year already but melted quickly because it warmed up. I would just do any ot the above suggestions and you should be ok.

 

I just kick the mudflaps when I get out of the car when theroads are snowy.

 

btw, I can't believe you run those garbage Eagle RS-A's in the snow/ice.....I can't think of a worse tire to be using.....Just because they call them "all season" doesn't make it true.

 

never seems to be a problem with me, oh wait...florida, I have the A/C on right now

 

if it bothers you so much, take off your mudflaps for the winter.

 

Just kicked my mudflaps out yesterday, worked great.

 

Well, This happened to me everyday since 3 weeks, because the huge amount of snow that fell these days, and I'm on 16" winter tires. So the tires aren't the only issue.

Just like Prophecy, used the scrapped to remove the snow but took a lot of time to remove it. A simple kicking-on-th-mudflaps-technique isn't enough to remove the huge amount of snow stuck after a 10 min run in these conditions.

 

I experienced the same issue with the snow/ice buildup when running the stock potenzas. I now have a set of 17" toyo observe snows on it, and although the snow still tends to build up, I find that when I hit a bump the tread from the tires seems to just break the snow up and pull it out.

I still try to knock out whats in the wells at night just to keep the snow from turning to ice.

 

 

I would assume that happened because you let your wheels spin. I have never seen that though.

 

Probably the melting and re-freezing of the ice. It was probably above freezing that day.

 

yeah man.. same thing happened to me.. i was driving.. and im like wtf is that noise.. yeah ice in there... are u lowered? because i think that has potential to have something to do w it.. cuz i just noticed it this winter for the 1st time after lowering.. not the same clearence for snow to pass through

 

my car is full stock.