Mud Flaps?

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emv

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 3, 2014
Messages
193
Location
PDX
We've had our Spark for a week now and it's really a kick in the pants to drive. It's been a while since I've driven anything with such a vertical rear end and I'd forgotten just how much crud gets kicked up on it when driving on wet roads. And there are plenty of wet roads in Portland this time of year. I think positioning the rear wheels so far pack makes the problem worse.

I've been looking for a pair or rear mud flaps to possibly lessen this issue but I'm coming up short. Has anybody found and/or bought any? Was the installation reasonably easy, did you have to drill any holes, and did it work?
 
I've been thinking about getting a set of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161156824470

I fully expect some minor modifications might be required, but they're cheap enough that I wouldn't mind trimming to fit. You feel like being the first guinea pig? :) I'm in Portland and my Spark EV is white, so I know where you're coming from. I'm actually more concerned about the front tires kicking up lots of junk onto the sides of the body.

If you get these and want some help with the install, let me know. I've got a shop and lots of tools at my disposal and I'm local to you. Welcome to the forum, glad to see another PDX person in here!

Bryce
 
Thanks, I hope. $42 bucks poorer and waiting for delivery (estimated between Match 14-28). I'll post again in this thread when they show up from Korea. If I have problems getting them on I'll take you up on your offer.
 
Well, the mud flaps arrived yesterday. They appear to be a quality product, well packed, and arrived well within the promised time frame. I have no complaints with the seller whatsoever and will be leaving him positive feedback.

Unfortunately, they don't fit. The screw holes appear to line up but there are enough differences between the gas and EV that it's not going to be a bolt on affair. On the front flaps it is because of the lower side molding. On the rear it appears as if the lower lip has a different contour and possibly extends lower.

When time permits I'll look more closely and figure if I might be able to cut them to fit. Otherwise I might just try to sell them to somebody with a gas Spark.

When you're one of just over 700, you know you're going to be swimming upstream sometimes.
 
If you could snap any pictures that would be really helpful, I'm glad to post them up here if you don't have a photo host. If you decide not to try and modify them to fit, let me know and I'll probably buy them off you and try it out.

Thanks for the follow up. I knew they wouldn't fit as-is; the question remains on how much work they need to fit properly.

Bryce
 
Brief follow-up for those interested in putting mud flaps on their Spark EV. emv ended up deciding not to install these on his car, so I bought them from him (the ones linked on ebay) and tried it out. The rears are way off, and would take a lot of modifying and carving to fit..enough modifications, that you'd probably be better off with some generic flat stuff. The fronts weren't too far off, so I made it work quick and dirty before my first hill climb to reduce the amount of gravel potentially flying down the side of the car.

The front mud flaps are made to have three screws attach them, two on the front face (facing the tire) and one on the bottom (facing the ground). The holes are not in the correct spots on our car as the Spark EV has the side skirts that are not standard on normal Sparks. No worries, as all I had to do was drill two new holes into the mud flaps and reuse the existing screws for the two forward facing screws (while ignoring the bottom screw, which isn't as easy). This was as simple as removing the two screws I wanted to reuse, holding the mudflap in the position I wanted them, marking a hole of the approximate location of where the screw goes, and drilling it out to accept the existing screw. These tiny plastic screws don't take much torque at all, so don't torque them down hard! This is what it looked like after installed:

15358568009_d235ee7014_b.jpg


14925010443_470d5897ae_b.jpg


I have had them on for several hundred miles, including plenty of hillclimbing and autocrossing, a couple of high speed runs, and a few runs through a grass field, and the mud flaps don't seem any worse for wear. Despite only using two screws (instead of the preferred three) they haven't come loose, made any funny noises, or caused any issues otherwise that I have noticed. The fit is quite nice, and at first glance you'd never suspect that they were not factory installed. I haven't done any scientific comparison testing to determine the affect on range, but I suspect this would hurt aerodynamics (and thus reduce range). You can see they catch quite a bit of debris!

15521482006_a8947d96f9_b.jpg


Hopefully this helps if anybody else is interested in some factory fit-appearing mud flaps.

Bryce
 
Just following up to let folks know these front mud flaps have stayed on just fine despite having only two of the three intended fasteners. We had the worst weather abuse to date this week, where big piles of freezing slush and snow were packed onto the mud flap. Even with my lowered ride height, these mud flaps stayed on without issue.

Bryce
 
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