I was wandering if I'm not the only one, but I have a 2010 Maxima SV and the car came with the mudguard accessories from the factory; does anyone else think they are the cheapest worse thing Nissan could do? they aren't really even a mudflap/guard but nothing more then a cheap extra FLAT piece of body panel added to behind the front and rear wheels

now that the winter has hit, I have rock chips and marks all over the side of my car because these lousy things do nothing to protect the sides of the car from stuff like that how could a 38k car have such a cheap worthless accessory, such as these mud guards, that do nothing to help protect and keep the car looking nice? I think the Altima has the same crappy mud guards as well for a option extra? what is up with Nissan ??

I am thinking of writing a letter to Nissan Consumer Affairs complaining about this and that they need to come up with better body colored mud flaps for the car that actually attach and extend down past the wheel well so that the sides of the car are protected!!I mean even my 08 TL has actual body colored mud flaps from Acura that extend I would say 4-5 inches past the wheel well and protects the sides of the car nicely! why can't Nissan do this?

I have super black, so you can imagine that all this crap on the side of my car really shows up nicely; luckily some of it has come out with a couple coats of wax and a electric buffer I have but some still remains and this will get worse as the winter goes on, plus my idiot township puts stones down my street instead of salt, stupidity !

since I have black it makes it easy for color purposes but can anyone recommend what and where I can go and by some nice decent mudguards/flaps to help protect my Maxima

any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

 

Smartie666 - It was clear from day one (June 26, 2008) that the splash guards (the 7th gen Maxima does NOT have 'mudguards' or 'mud flaps') were strictly cosmetic. That is why several here (including me) immediately constructed black hard rubber mud flaps and attached them to the front face of the splash guards. A few folks have even posted photos somewhere on here. They extend down around 3 inches below the botttom of the splash guards, work very well, and even on my white car, are virtually invisible. Three inches may not sound like a big mud flap, but that three inches is measured below the bottom of the splash guards, which already extend about two inches below the bottom of the car.

They could easily be extended further down, but I chose the minimum extension that would block all the debris, and went no further down because this car rides very low, so if extended too far down, these flaps become susceptable to damage going over speed bumps. Also, the smaller the flap, the less noticable it is.

I ran the outer edge on my front flaps straight down starting from about a foot above the bottom of the splash guards, which means the bottom part of the flap will extend slightly out to the side, since the side of the car slopes inward. This is necessary because the bottom of the tires is also a little out to the side, and will throw garbage onto the side of the car unless the mud flap extends out as far as the tire.

The back flaps have to be about as wide as the tires, else they will look strange to any driver behind you. The back flaps do not have to extend out to the side, because the car side slopes inward and upward going toward the rear end, and there is no real problem with debris being able to reach the side at that point.

I bought my generic black hard rubber flaps at Pep Boys. No matter what the color of your car may be, the ONLY color of mud flap that works is black, because it tends to disappear against the black tire, the black fender well lining and the shadows usually found around the bottom of cars. I bought the 13" by 7" flaps for the front, and the 15" by 9" flaps for the rear. I trimmed about an inch off the top of the front flaps, and about five inches off the top of the rear flaps, then used the same screws that were already on the face of the fender well and splash guards to attach these flaps. The front is easy (simply turn the wheel to the side leaving plenty of working room). The rear is more difficult to reach, and several here on the ORG simply removed the rear wheels in order to have lots of working room.

The sides of my car have been much easier to keep clean since I installed these flaps.

 

It might be just you. I like them. I think they add to the sporty styling. I do not like the type you described that hang down as they take away from the looks. The main issue may just be your location (rocks spread out on the road...that sucks.) Nissan bills them as "splash guards", so to get actual "mud guards" you may have to go aftermarket. All of the ones I saw -google it- were black. That might not be so bad for you....having a black car.

 

I rather have actual protecting splash guards that take away from the look then to have all kinds of scratch marks on the side of my car, I think that takes away more from the actual look of the car rather than a decent splash guard; my Acura and Infiniti have splash guards that are real actual splash guards that hang just a little below the wheel wheel and match the body color and they by no means take away from the look of the car; if Acura and Infiniti can do then there is no reason Nissan can't! they charge as much for the Maxima as a Acura or Infiniti

the whole purpose of a splash guard is for water, stones, gunk, etc to be kept from splashing onto the sides of your car by the guard; these OEM splash guards do nothing that name suggest they should!

 

I too added extra mudflaps to the bottem of splash guards and posted a "How too" on the subject. It took me a couple of hours and was not that difficult. I have had to wash the sides of my car much less since the installation of these. See link below:

http://forums.maxima.org/7th-generat...mud-flaps.html

 

I KNEW we had an excellent writeup on this with explicit photos somewhere. Thanks a bunch bmanbmv!

 

yes, a very nice, I like it a lota!!

 

Thanks Bman good job gald you did it first.Save me the effort.

I serched for solutions the other day as well.With the snowy melty dirty roads in NY now its really bad.
I agree fatory flaps do little to stop water spraying all over sides and window(maybe stops rocks as stated?).I am disapointed in them and I too hope aftermrkets come out with body color that can be installed with the factory and still look good.(factorys look cool if at the least)
Black looks unoticable on the gray.I think they would show up too much on my silver sport though so I am going to maybe write some aftermarket guys to see if the can come up with somthing.Any one join me in that?
I do have a machine shop that could make alluminim ones that might look cool.Too much trouble though rahter buy em.
Side of car is a mess.If I didnt have to drive it I wouldnt in bad weather which brings me to the next question I am going to serach for a threads here on.
Whats the deal with the noises in the front when snow driving OMG sounds like whees are gonna freaking break off .I know to turn VDC off in deep snow.I dont like VDC that much I think its dangerous to those who dont know how to use it.I am hoping theses noise are normal.

Let me know if theres a thead in this?NOt good at using forums as of yet but will try keyword search.

 

I completely disagree with that assumption. When the flaps are added to the front face of the splash guards, they only come down 3 more inches below the bottom of the splash guards, and are virtually invisible. The color that is noticed is the color of the splash guards. The little black flap is totally lost against the black background of black tires, black fender well lining, etc.

Have you ever noticed how much the old Altima color-matching flaps stand out? I don't like my flaps to be noticed.

I have a white '09, and put little black flaps on the face of my splash guards, and nobody has ever noticed them. Had I matched the white color of the car, they would not only be very noticable, but the dirt and stuff thrown against the face of them by the tires would always be visible and annoying.

My '04 Maxima was light silver, and the black flaps I added to that car were never noticed the five years I had the car. They sure do help keep the sides of the car cleaner.

 

Thanks Light
I agree with your stament and analogy.Thanks for disecting it.Youve changed my mind.I think I will recosider the posted method if noting else appears.

I dont expecrt after mrkets to blend in though but would expect a design that looked good Just like the lip and all esle do.I actually liked the way altima body colors flaps looked though and would get them if i had altima..Thas an ipinion so to each his own.

Concern on those black ones is how it looks when veiwing the inside of the wheel well.Is it obvious the screws and flap? how concealled are they from that perspective. also true any body color flap I would modify black on the wheel well side if it wasent

White is a really good tester to see them on,I'll have to look at your photos if you have then.

 

saw your pics Light.

Look good on yours

 

I have to agree I love the way it looks def gives it a bit more of a sportier look. I'd take some scratches which I have not seen on my car then put those blacks mudguard on.

 

I sort of liked the molded mudguards of the Altima on the 'in-between' colors, and felt they looked very nice on the darker colors, but was never quite able to like the white mudguards on the white Altima or the light silver mudguards on the light silver Altimas. I would have painted the white and silver Altima mudguards black.

The 7th generation Maxima wheel/tire combo fills the wheelwells enough that the rear flaps will never be seen inside the wheelwell. When the front wheel is turned sharply, the inside of the wheelwell becomes visible. Since the inside of the wheelwell is black and the tires are black, the black mudflaps are scarcely visible. I sanded the screwheads lightly so paint would stick, then spraypainted the screwheads black. Now they are almost invisible.

If you decide to take on this task, you might want to read this entire thread very closely, in order to be sure you know all the possible pitfalls and details before starting; details like the fact you may need to take off the rear tires to get good working room for installing the rear flaps, and that the front flaps need to reach to the side as far as the outside edge of the tire tread. Reading everything up front will make the project go much smoother.

 

thanksLight
I read the instalation guide its likley somthing that I wont tackle for ahwile.

Did you see my post on nosiy fronykt end and VDC operation.I suspect ou might know alot about this are you available for input if I PM you?

 

I'm always available, but know almost nothing about snow driving in modern vehicles. After all, I live south of Atlanta.

I did find found your post about front end noise over in the 'snow handling' thread. I must say I have never heard such a noise, but then during the VERY few times in recent years I have driven in snow, I was very careful to NEVER let the tires slip. If the tires started to slip, I knew I have no business on the road and headed home.

I drove in snow a lot over fifty years ago when living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, but there was no VDC or Traction Control or ABS or FWD or radial tires or much of anything back then. But since then, I have lived in Arizona, California, Alabama and Georgia, and nobody south of Atlanta has the foggiest idea how to drive in snow.

You will have to get help on your noise from someone living in the snow belt. All I can say is that since the noise was there whether VDC was on or off, then it isn't the VDC.

Your strange sound could possibly be Traction Control in action, but my best guess would be that it may be the ABS, which might make a totally different sound on snow than it does on pavement. Lets see what our friends who have driven this 7th gen Maxima in snow have to say on this sound. Anybody here on the ORG have any ideas?

 

I also think they look nice. To each his own though. My city doesn't intentionally put loose rocks in the road like yours either.

 

I never said they didn't look nice, they do, but the splash guards don't protect the sides of the car worth a damn! Thats why some of us have had to get the ones from Autozone to replace them so we don't have rock and stone chips all over the sides of our cars before the winter is up!

 

I would not REPLACE the splash guards with flaps; I would attach the flaps to the face of the splash guards. That way, the splash guards both add support/bracing to the flaps, and sort of hide part of the mud flaps, making them less noticable.