I've had several cars that have the underside plastic pieces over the years(3 Camaros and now maxima), and I am VERY familiar with those little plastic wanna be screws that are used for the most part to hold the plastic to the brackets. HOWEVER, earlier this week on my drive home I noticed a slight dragging noise coming from my front end. I get home and look under the car to find that all of those little plastic wanna be screws are missing from the right side of the car!! Ended up getting a handful of those plastic screws for free from the dealer and fixing it myself but wtf, how in the world are those things just falling out? I've never had this happen before and I'm wondering if anyone else has gone through this.

All in all not really that big of an issue, but I'm just curious.

 

Have you or someone else taken those clips out before? Sometimes they break in the process of being removed.

 

The dealer one time ****ed up the driver side plastic of my car because they just took out the screws on the bottom and then just ripped the plastic back without taking the little plastic rivets out and created large holes where the plastic rivets WERE at and when they put it back together the rivets wouldn't even keep the plastic up so had to get a new plastic fender well.

 

Last time I had this exact problem was on one of my two 1985 Maximas. Same annoying strange dragging sound, then when I backed up, the plastic shield caught on a crack in the pavement, crumpled and tore away from all but two screws, and was virtually separated from the car. Never happened on my other '85 Maxima, or on any of the Maximas (every generation) I have owned since.

 

Yeah, I just threw that out once I did my first oil change. I hate how new vehicles come with plastic covers for everything.

 

It actually protects your car trailer... should leave it there. for the 5th gen that i had the bumper emded up zip tied not sure which mechanic ripped the holes... but yea its all plastic sux.

 

yeah, I'd definitely keep the plastic covers on the underside of the car installed - dont want rocks/etc shooting up into things it never helps.

 

This plastic shield can also slightly reduce the amount of dust and dirty water/slush being stirred up by vehicles ahead of us and by our own front tires from roiling up into the engine compartment.

 

It makes sense to design it cheaply since its out of view and will take damage.... should be cheap/easy to replace unlike the more expensive components it protects.