WTH??? 1 week into this car and I give it its first bath. I find the rear wheel wells are not a smooth hard plastic like I expect but this "carpeted" well made with this plastic resin mesh.

What is the word on this? Does it hold up over the years? God I'm thinking it'll hold salt like crazy. Is there a DigitalFit mat made to cover THIS carpet?

What's with this stuff?

 

My 06 had it, never really looked into it but I think it helps in sound proofing the car, after the winter spray it down and it cleans up like new

 

wondering myself

 

I noticed this when washing mine for the first time. It seems alot easier to clean (solid rinse with hose in power wash mode) than scrubbing down the wheel well. Atleast I thought so.

 

The carpet is placed in the wheel well to reduce tire and road noise.
I don't think it does much of anything but capture a lot of snow and ice in the winter.

 

It's in the rear wells of my '05. No problems for 65,000 miles.

 

Thanks everybody and gizzdad. I open to most things but I never would have thought about carpeting the wheel well.

Do you get 4-6 months of salt like we do in NE Ohio? I just a bit worried about rust under the carpet.

 

I drove with carpeted rear wheel wells for five years with my '04 SL, and they never gave the slightest problem. Of course I live south of Atlanta, and never experienced road salt. I would feel Nissan must have considered the situation, and made the assemblage in a manner that precludes road salt from getting between the carpet and the metal.

As others mentioned, the carpet is necessary because the rear wheel wells intrude into the passenger cabin, and, without the sound-absorbing material, would otherwise introduce bothersome tire and road noise into the cabin.

 

I thought this was odd as well as I only hand wash my max, but the wheel wells seem to clean easy.

 

My G/F Altima has it...funny but my GS 450h has it too!! My 430 is plastic...

 

Yes, we get salt from November - March. The rear wheel wells don't accumulate any worse than the front, which have plastic liners. I usually take a mallet and a pry bar to them several times each winter to chip out the accumulated frozen shushies.

 

Well, I was under there yesterday checking the left rear suspension knuckle codes, and I noticed there is quite a bit of empty space between the steel well and the carpet. Makes a nice sound deadening area but will hold accumulated salty snow over a 5 month snow season. Not quite what I want. Since any covering of that gap will interefere with the suspension, I guess I'll just have to do a good oilspray in there at Thanksgiving to ward off any potential salt issues. I'd like to keep this car for 10 years as I think it'll do it with some level of success. But I don't think its set up to be rust free to the end. Funny though how the guys that do oilspray has a 100% like-new treated areas after 10 years.