Are mud guards worth it? (insurance, vehicle, windshield, best)

[johnfrisco]

What's their advantage. I drive a Camry and don't do any off-roading. Thanks!

[victimofGM]

Yes, they're worth it. You may not go off roading, but many roads are still made with asphalt and hot tar. Also, plenty of roads have loose gravel.

[Lux Hauler]

Originally Posted by johnfrisco

What's their advantage. I drive a Camry and don't do any off-roading. Thanks!

Offroad or Onroad there is a variety of debris and substances you are constantly running over and kicking rearward... blasting both sides of the rockers and quarters. As a snowbelter they may prove useful for you by prolonging the body life of your vehicle. All the salty water/snow and mechanical abrasion from road salt impurities will eventually erode and corrode those areas. Guards will block most of that. Good investments but do the installation correctly, just don't drive in sheet metal screws into body panels unless they are a plastic or rubber.

[ElkHunter]

Yes, very much so.

A lot of people don't realize that quarter panel rust, a lot of times, is caused by minute paint chips caused by rocks. So small you really can't see them for a long time, but they are there. Some quarter panel rust is caused by the inside, but most is caused by chips on the outside.

When I buy used, I look for little things like that. If a person trys to keep up their vehicle in some kind of shape, little things like mud guards, undercoating, etc... are all signs of somebody that cares about their vehicles.

Another thing to think about, is state laws and liability. When I drove professionally, I talked with other truckers and they told me about incidents where they were liable for cracked windshields, due to mudflaps that were missing, or broken, etc. Because the driver of the car got pictures of a mudflap missing, their insurance went after the trucker. The best one I heard of, was a guy that went after a trucker because the truck threw up a rock and cracked the windshield. Investigation by the Highway Patrol determined that all mudflaps were in place, in good shape, so he walked over and gave the car driver a ticket for following too close. hahahaha Don't know how true the stories were, but that one was funny.

[Checkered24]

As a rust belter, I have seen more quarter panel rot issues due to improper mud guard installation than from damage due to debris. If the screw attaching the mud guard is not properly sealed, or that seal fails, then the hole drilled causes bare metal to be exposed to the elements and rust far faster (and deeper) causing rot than any caused by a chip.

Rot in fenders is almost always from the inside, where water pools and sits in creases. Or from holes drilled exposing bare metal and defeating all of the factory rust proofing coatings and safeguards. Not from stone chips.