Before we go off-road, I want to do what I can to protect as much as I can. Opted for some mudflaps and some basic paint protection film.
Mud Flaps
After doing some internet research, I decided, based on the price and reviews, to go for the IAG Trail Shield Adjustable Mud flaps. Using the sites vehicle selector it indicated that they would fit, so I ordered the front and rear. Sadly, I wasn’t able to figure out ANY WAY IN HELL that they’d work with the factory step rail. Thankfully, to IAG’s credit, they took my return and didn’t even charge me the restocking fee. Class act.
I then ended up choosing the more expensive Rally Armor flaps. They seem pretty well-made, but they’re MUD FLAPS.
Front Mud Flaps
They have a factory-clean cut hole in the flap to allow the rail to protrude through. They went on fairly easily, other than the inner fender attachment clips. They LOOK like they’d just screw loose, but they don’t. If you push on them with as much force as you’d normally use to avoid stripping the plastic, they’ll just spin and do nothing. Turns out you need just enough pressure to keep the bit seated — back them out slowly and the clip pulls right off.
Rear Mud Flaps
These attach to the ‘steel’ factory rear bumper by attaching to the plastic end caps. The stainless steel mounting bracket sort of slides onto it, and gets secured by a couple of screws that go through inserts in the bracket, then ‘pinch’ the bracket to the plastic. The first one went OK, it’s super-tight in there to tighten up the screws. Things went badly on the second one, though.
When I went to pre-thread the screws into the bracket, one of them started fine, then got tight. Me being me, I decided that it would probably be fine if I just kept threading it in anyway. Of course, it wasn’t fine, and it stuck in there. HARD. Like, snapped the screw off hard trying to back it out. Hey, it’s a mudflap, not a critical thing, fine, i’ll drill it out and tap it to a bigger size, not THAT big a deal, right? Nope. Of course the WHOLE insert pops off the bracket.
Now it’s welder time I guess. Who doesn’t get the welder out when installing mudflaps, right?
I figured I’d at least CHECK with Rally Armor and see what they have to say, I mean, it’s at LEAST half their fault. I’m for sure not blameless, but something wasn’t right with that threading. They kindly offered to let me buy another bracket for an extra $50. Gee, thanks, very kind. Welded on nut it is.
Paint Protection Film
I could have gone a couple of different ways on PPF, pay someone a bunch of money to get it done better and right, or be cheap and screw it up myself and live with it forever. Of course I went with ‘screw it up myself’. I ordered some stuff to protect various bits from StickerFab. They sell cut-to-fit bits of film and vinyl. I got some for the headlights, front edge of the hood, door pockets, door edges and lower doors.
We tried the rear hatch door edge first, for some stupid reason, it has some curves and stuff to work around, and it didn’t go well. I guess that will be unprotected. Maybe a flatter thing to start will be easier, I thought, so I did the rear hatch door handle pocket. That went pretty well, with the hardest part getting the vinyl lined up where it ‘looks right’, and then being super-patient getting it to lie down flat. After getting it where I was pretty happy with it, we did the other 4 door handles, which I think went pretty well. They’ll keep the scratches out from behind the door handles for sure.
We then tried the headlight cover film. I’m not sure if I ordered wrong, or they’re cut for something else, but we ended up having to make an on-the-fly modification to make some relief cuts to get them to work. They got applied though, and I don’t think they’re too noticeable or anything. The front hood edge was next, a much larger piece. We learned that getting the bubbles out was pretty satisfying, but not super-easy. It came out OK, not great, not terrible. I can live with it for what it’s doing.
We still have the door edge pieces to do, and some lower-door film that we just didn’t feel like trying yet.
What’s Next
We’re going to go off-road in this thing, even if it’s just a little bit, I swear.