One of the other problems I have with my lifted truck is it’s constantly getting covered with mud, dirt and in the winter with salt. In the winter, the salt often gets so caked on the windows, it can be hard to see out of them. I can wash it, but just going through a mud puddle on a dirt road gets it’s soaked. It also seems like I end up throwing a lot of stones, and I’m chipping the paint in places, and a few times I’ve had stones hit windows – but so far none of them have broke.
Right now, the tires on my truck, after lifting it, stick out from the body. Rather then much of the thrown gravel, rocks, and mud hitting the wheel well, they go fly out from the truck. Installing aftermarket wheel fenders would help with that. I’ve never been that much of a fan of the aftermarket fenders, as I think they are kind of ugly, but they would keep rocks, salt, and mud from being thrown.
It also would make the truck legal in many more states. New York doesn’t require wheel fenders on lifted trucks, you can have the wheels stick out form the body. That isn’t true in some other states, namely Maryland, which I have to go through to get to West Virginia. Sure, they’re aren’t a lot of cops looking for that, and if you not speeding, chances of getting pulled over are small. And it’s only like 10-20 miles to cut through that state.
One of the wheel wells has started to get some salt rot, like all GM trucks do after a while. There is just this spot over the rear wheels in the truck bed, that there is no good place to clean the salt and mud off of, and over time, it eats from the inside. It’s not so noticeable right now, but it will get worse over time. Fenders would cover the rust, and make the truck look sharp for a lot longer. Plus control the mud and salt that covers the outside of the body.
But the salt and mud covered windows are a real pain. I hate seeing the rust on my nice truck. I’ve looked online, and I can get a nice set of the fenders for about $150, and if I order out of state, I can probably avoid paying sales tax, not that I would dare to forget to tell the state about my expenditure. Or I could see what one of the local performance shops would charge to have them bought there and installed – that would ensure they were installed nice and straight. I’m not crazy about drilling my own holes through the quarter panel – there is no turning back if you screw up yourself.
I think I will decided by mid-autumn what I want to do. I want to have fenders on the truck before winter if possible, to keep the salt from coating my truck nearly as badly as it normally does in the winter. I want to not find myself cleaning off the windows so I can see where I am driving in the winter.
