Installed some felt front wheel well liners today, mostly for aesthetic reasons, partly as I like to tinker and slightly because they may improve road noise from the front end.
These are the liners:
I dressed these with CarPro Cquartz Fabric Coat after a failed attempt on a test patch with a regular ceramic coating. The Cquartz should provide a semi-permanent hydrophobic coating, with any luck this'll help the liners to stay reasonably clean, or at least, easier to keep clean. This product is super strong so if you're going to attempt this, do it outside and wear gloves. I did neither and don't recommend it. Work in with a sponge/applicator leave for an hour then spray the product over the liners again and leave to settle for 24 hours.
With the trolley jack in place but not raised, I loosened the lug nuts, you'll need a 21mm socket for this. I didn't realise these were essentially nuts that screwed off of the shaft(?) so that threw me for a moment as I was expecting the entire lug nut to screw into the hub.
Removed the mudguards to start with, was reasonably happy with how little dirt they had collected in over 8k miles. When I originally installed, I lined the inside of the mudflaps with some window draught excluder to make sure they fitted tightly but softly against the paint work. The dirt that did get inside them was dry and relatively fine:
Degreased the wheel well with the usual culprits and dried. It's weird how the original liner is part smooth and part fabric like, really doubt the fabric parts do anything to prevent noise:
To install the liner you'll need a good pry tool and a tiny flat head screwdriver. Remove the push clips from the top and rear part of the wheel well, don't remove all of the clips at once as the original wheel liner will drop, you're not removing this, you're adding the liner on top of this. The liner is reasonably supple that you can bend it slightly to remove the lower clips with the top part installed. The liners came with longer replacement clips so don't worry too much if the original ones don't come out cleanly.
One of the holes in the liners doesn't have a corresponding hole in the wheel well so don't worry about plugging those. Also, on the near side only, I had to add a hole in the liner as there was a hole behind it that was missed from the design.
Before reinstalling mudflaps, the liner needs to fold under the car towards where the jack is positioned in the picture above. There's one push clip to remove and a 10mm bolt. Make sure to fold the new liner under the floor pan that the 10mm bolt attaches to then put the bolt through the floor pan then the liner then back into it's socket. Dressed the mudflaps with Autoglym bumper care which is great for restoring the faded black colours on plastic parts.
With the wheel off I cleaned the calliper with IPA (Gtechniq panel wipe) and then applied a ceramic coating (Gtechniq C5 wheel armour). Used the opportunity to give the inside of the alloy a good clean too.
End result:
Really important to remember to tighten the lug nuts with a torque wrench to 175Nm and always a good idea to go for a cautious short drive then see if any require further tightening.
I think it looks much neater now, will see how it holds up in the dirt. It's a fiddly job and probably took 4 hours in total to complete, probably half that time was preparing the various coatings, dressings and cleaning.
Liners were about £80, Cquartz Fabric around £17, had all the other products and tools so a nice little upgrade for under £100.
As for noise reduction, I can still hear noise from the front but it does seem duller. It didn't bother me before and generally at normal speeds the cabin is really quiet. I'll report back if there's any discernible difference after a longer motorway drive.
These are the liners:
I dressed these with CarPro Cquartz Fabric Coat after a failed attempt on a test patch with a regular ceramic coating. The Cquartz should provide a semi-permanent hydrophobic coating, with any luck this'll help the liners to stay reasonably clean, or at least, easier to keep clean. This product is super strong so if you're going to attempt this, do it outside and wear gloves. I did neither and don't recommend it. Work in with a sponge/applicator leave for an hour then spray the product over the liners again and leave to settle for 24 hours.
With the trolley jack in place but not raised, I loosened the lug nuts, you'll need a 21mm socket for this. I didn't realise these were essentially nuts that screwed off of the shaft(?) so that threw me for a moment as I was expecting the entire lug nut to screw into the hub.
Removed the mudguards to start with, was reasonably happy with how little dirt they had collected in over 8k miles. When I originally installed, I lined the inside of the mudflaps with some window draught excluder to make sure they fitted tightly but softly against the paint work. The dirt that did get inside them was dry and relatively fine:
Degreased the wheel well with the usual culprits and dried. It's weird how the original liner is part smooth and part fabric like, really doubt the fabric parts do anything to prevent noise:
To install the liner you'll need a good pry tool and a tiny flat head screwdriver. Remove the push clips from the top and rear part of the wheel well, don't remove all of the clips at once as the original wheel liner will drop, you're not removing this, you're adding the liner on top of this. The liner is reasonably supple that you can bend it slightly to remove the lower clips with the top part installed. The liners came with longer replacement clips so don't worry too much if the original ones don't come out cleanly.
One of the holes in the liners doesn't have a corresponding hole in the wheel well so don't worry about plugging those. Also, on the near side only, I had to add a hole in the liner as there was a hole behind it that was missed from the design.
Before reinstalling mudflaps, the liner needs to fold under the car towards where the jack is positioned in the picture above. There's one push clip to remove and a 10mm bolt. Make sure to fold the new liner under the floor pan that the 10mm bolt attaches to then put the bolt through the floor pan then the liner then back into it's socket. Dressed the mudflaps with Autoglym bumper care which is great for restoring the faded black colours on plastic parts.
With the wheel off I cleaned the calliper with IPA (Gtechniq panel wipe) and then applied a ceramic coating (Gtechniq C5 wheel armour). Used the opportunity to give the inside of the alloy a good clean too.
End result:
Really important to remember to tighten the lug nuts with a torque wrench to 175Nm and always a good idea to go for a cautious short drive then see if any require further tightening.
I think it looks much neater now, will see how it holds up in the dirt. It's a fiddly job and probably took 4 hours in total to complete, probably half that time was preparing the various coatings, dressings and cleaning.
Liners were about £80, Cquartz Fabric around £17, had all the other products and tools so a nice little upgrade for under £100.
As for noise reduction, I can still hear noise from the front but it does seem duller. It didn't bother me before and generally at normal speeds the cabin is really quiet. I'll report back if there's any discernible difference after a longer motorway drive.
