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Tesla Bros Skid Plates - Got Em

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Did anyone try the Evanexx skid plate?

 
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Did anyone try the Evanexx skid plate?

never heard of it but looks legit!
 
For people thinking about swapping to metal skid plates, I think it's important to clarify that Tesla switched the factory covers from a fairly inadequate fiber-type material to a much better molded plastic design. I don't know exactly when in this change-over occurred, but it seems it was sometime between mid-2020 and mid-2021.

I didn't realize this until after I received my aluminum plates from RPM and set up to do the installation. The advertising copy and videos, from several sites, talked about the old fiber type covers and didn't explain that the customer's car could already have something better. I'm not sorry I bought the aluminum ones, but it's always better to understand your situation.
( I still endorse RPM and other stateside suppliers, even though some people try to get the products cheaper from AliExpress or whatever. RPM isn't the cheapest, and their videos sometimes gloss over certain installation issues, but they've gladly helped me out twice with specific unusual hardware support issues; that would have been nearly impossible otherwise.)​

If you have the older fiber covers, I think the aftermarket replacements are a huge step up in protection. If you have the newer plastic ones, it's your call. The aluminum ones are more protective, but the plastic ones are not bad now.

I bought the front and rear RPM plates for my new MY during their last Christmas sale. And a friend ordered for his new M3P at the same time, then donated his M3 factory plastic plates to me; I shipped them up to my son who has a 2020 M3. Then we installed them together on my last visit, and there's no doubt the plastic or the metal ones are both way better than the original rippable fiber.

I did find that I had to slightly elongate the two holes where the male bolts come through, ie the only two that are secured with flange nuts instead of the captured-washer small black bolts. The plates are aluminum so this took only about 3 minutes each with a normal-sized round file. I also agree with @gr8tdane24 that the rear aluminum plate doesn't come with any means to attach it back to the fender skirt near the rear wheel. They could come up with a 90° bent J-bolt kind of hardware for this, but they didn't bother. So you can do what he did and fashion a bracket, or you can let it go without the attachment, which is what I did so far.

For reattaching the bolts, I used lower strength threadlocker. The head of one of the original bolts twisted off even though I removed everything with a hand ratchet instead of a power tool. These body bolts with captured washer are fairly easy to find on Amazon, in case you want to be prepared for breaking or losing any of the originals.
 
For people thinking about swapping to metal skid plates, I think it's important to clarify that Tesla switched the factory covers from a fairly inadequate fiber-type material to a much better molded plastic design. I don't know exactly when in this change-over occurred, but it seems it was sometime between mid-2020 and mid-2021.

I didn't realize this until after I received my aluminum plates from RPM and set up to do the installation. The advertising copy and videos, from several sites, talked about the old fiber type covers and didn't explain that the customer's car could already have something better. I'm not sorry I bought the aluminum ones, but it's always better to understand your situation.
( I still endorse RPM and other stateside suppliers, even though some people try to get the products cheaper from AliExpress or whatever. RPM isn't the cheapest, and their videos sometimes gloss over certain installation issues, but they've gladly helped me out twice with specific unusual hardware support issues; that would have been nearly impossible otherwise.)​

If you have the older fiber covers, I think the aftermarket replacements are a huge step up in protection. If you have the newer plastic ones, it's your call. The aluminum ones are more protective, but the plastic ones are not bad now.

I bought the front and rear RPM plates for my new MY during their last Christmas sale. And a friend ordered for his new M3P at the same time, then donated his M3 factory plastic plates to me; I shipped them up to my son who has a 2020 M3. Then we installed them together on my last visit, and there's no doubt the plastic or the metal ones are both way better than the original rippable fiber.

I did find that I had to slightly elongate the two holes where the male bolts come through, ie the only two that are secured with flange nuts instead of the captured-washer small black bolts. The plates are aluminum so this took only about 3 minutes each with a normal-sized round file. I also agree with @gr8tdane24 that the rear aluminum plate doesn't come with any means to attach it back to the fender skirt near the rear wheel. They could come up with a 90° bent J-bolt kind of hardware for this, but they didn't bother. So you can do what he did and fashion a bracket, or you can let it go without the attachment, which is what I did so far.

For reattaching the bolts, I used lower strength threadlocker. The head of one of the original bolts twisted off even though I removed everything with a hand ratchet instead of a power tool. These body bolts with captured washer are fairly easy to find on Amazon, in case you want to be prepared for breaking or losing any of the originals.
I think the plastic ones that Tesla now uses are still inadequate. They are just plain ABS “sewer pipe” plastic and are pretty prone to cracking. Tesla would have been wise to use a glass fiber reinforced plastic like PA6 nylon.
 
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I think the plastic ones that Tesla now uses are still inadequate. They are just plain ABS “sewer pipe” plastic and are pretty prone to cracking. Tesla would have been wise to use a glass fiber reinforced plastic like PA6 nylon.
Yes, like I said I'm still glad I got mine, I recommend them and I'd do it again. But I just think people should know the score.
 
Does anybody think there could possibly be an overheating issue with the TesBros plates that have the foam insulation? There’s a much cheaper set on Amazon and I thought about putting closed cell foam on the inside of the them. But not sure if A) the foam might touch components under the plates or B) cause overheating of those components.

Here are the plates:
 
Does anybody think there could possibly be an overheating issue with the TesBros plates that have the foam insulation? There’s a much cheaper set on Amazon and I thought about putting closed cell foam on the inside of the them. But not sure if A) the foam might touch components under the plates or B) cause overheating of those components.

Here are the plates:
I don't think you should have any concern about this. The skid plates are hardly airtight, and if anything their presence encourages laminar flow from the pressure front formed under the bumper at high speed. There's plenty of opportunity for ventilation.

The plates are aluminum which is highly thermally conductive, but remember the Tesla OEM covers are either solid plastic or the older bituminous fiberboard, neither of which have much heat conduction. So the addition of a foam or asphalt sound deadening layer will not compromise anything compared to the factory materials.

You wouldn't want the very thick because it would interfere with the normal mounting, but the few millimeters of foam or Dynamat type material is no problem.
 
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I don't think you should have any concern about this. The skid plates are hardly airtight, and if anything their presence encourages laminar flow from the pressure front formed under the bumper at high speed. There's plenty of opportunity for ventilation.

The plates are aluminum which is highly thermally conductive, but remember the Tesla OEM covers are either solid plastic or the older bituminous fiberboard, neither of which have much heat conduction. So the addition of a foam or asphalt sound deadening layer will not compromise anything compared to the factory materials.

You wouldn't want the very thick because it would interfere with the normal mounting, but the few millimeters of foam or Dynamat type material is no problem.
Do you think the foam would even make a noticeable difference?
 
Do you think the foam would even make a noticeable difference?
The purpose of the coating layer I think, it's really not anything to do with thermals. It is for sound deadening, which comes not so much from the acoustic properties of that layer, but more from dampening the natural resonant vibrations of the aluminum plate.

To this end, I don't think a thin sheet of lightweight foam would do very much - the adhesive backing tape would do more. You need something dense that will discourage vibration of the sheet metal. The products that will do this are things like Dynamat (or whatever alternatives exist today) which is a heavy sticky sheet that significantly attenuates the vibration or ringing of the sheet metal. A similar effect, I think, can be had by a moderately thick spray or brush-on undercoating product. I would look to see if the product description or advertising mentions sound deadening as a benefit. Also try to get something that won't smell too bad as it cures, and won't stay tlannoyingly soft and sticky; you want it to be basically dry when it's done. Noting that it will pick up mud and some grease over time, even in the Tesla.

A DIY treatment like that will have some cost, time and create some mess in your work area- so you should factor that in when you compare the cost of bare aluminum covers against the cost of a set that already has sound deadening applied. On the other hand, it could be a fun experimental project to learn about the available mod options and then write it up.

Good luck with this!
 
The purpose of the coating layer I think, it's really not anything to do with thermals. It is for sound deadening, which comes not so much from the acoustic properties of that layer, but more from dampening the natural resonant vibrations of the aluminum plate.

To this end, I don't think a thin sheet of lightweight foam would do very much - the adhesive backing tape would do more. You need something dense that will discourage vibration of the sheet metal. The products that will do this are things like Dynamat (or whatever alternatives exist today) which is a heavy sticky sheet that significantly attenuates the vibration or ringing of the sheet metal. A similar effect, I think, can be had by a moderately thick spray or brush-on undercoating product. I would look to see if the product description or advertising mentions sound deadening as a benefit. Also try to get something that won't smell too bad as it cures, and won't stay tlannoyingly soft and sticky; you want it to be basically dry when it's done. Noting that it will pick up mud and some grease over time, even in the Tesla.

A DIY treatment like that will have some cost, time and create some mess in your work area- so you should factor that in when you compare the cost of bare aluminum covers against the cost of a set that already has sound deadening applied. On the other hand, it could be a fun experimental project to learn about the available mod options and then write it up.

Good luck with this!
I think I'm gonna get the amazon plates and coat them with 3M rubber undercarriage spray. I drove to a baseball game up north on day 4 of having the new MY and hit a chunk of asphalt that had come loose. It made a terrible thunk and I made the decision then and there to put the metal plates in. I will say that just a cursory feel shows the improved OEM plastic ones are soooo much better than that fiberboard crap they used before. But the plastic is not all that thick and hitting a good sized object at 70 mph could defeat that plastic, I believe.