This is a very important area of the vehicle for appearance reasons. Those of you who have aftermarket wheels tend to totally cover the well area so it is not as important to you, however when those front wheels turn you can see inside there. Nothing ruins a vehicles appearance worse than faded, splotched, worn looking or even dirty wheel wells.

Typically people spray them with tire dressings or silicone after cleaning their cars to make them black again, which only lasts till the next rain or dust in the road. A lot of Detailers also spray them with some type of black spray paint to accomplish this too. That doesn't really look good due to high and low spots, rough and smooth areas and the overspray issues. There are plastic restorers that can be purchased for all plastic parts on the outside of the cars, then those can be treated to keep them nice. Most of our cars are between 6 and 10 years old, so treating brand new wheel well liners is not an option.

I am very OCD when it comes to my personal cars. I do paint corrections for stress relief and when it comes to this area there are no real solutions that are cheap. I thought about replacing all liners with new ones, but they are about 100$ each well. So rethought it and I know there are spray coatings that are applied to cars underneath so looked into that. What I really wanted was something that would make them look new and not like something was just sprayed on and made to work.

I recently sprayed my grille with Plasti Dip matte and was quite surprised how smooth it laid down. Also have been through some traffic with debris and figured I would have chips out of it, but no, it is still smooth. I wanted the liners to have some type of gloss to it and not be matte, so I looked into the Plasti Dip Gloss enhancer and said why not. Take out the liners, clean them perfectly, then spray with PD and then the GE. Even if there is a few nicks or scrapes on liners it should lay down pretty flat and hold up pretty well.

This is the process of what I did to achieve stellar results.

This is what the liners looked like before removal and cleaning.


I removed the liners one by one and thoroughly cleaned the suspension, and all the plastic parts under them, along with anything that had dirt, dust and especially the trays on the front up by the strut which hold tons of pebbles and road sand. After thoroughly cleaning the well area, I blew it off using the Metro Sidekick blower, then dressed all areas with a spray on sealant. This will lessen the amount of dust that collects under the liners also. Also protects the rubber and plastic from weathering. This is what the finished well area looks like before the liners were re-installed.





The liners were sprayed with degreaser and washed on all sides with a brush till they were perfectly cleaned. Dried with the blower. Then I sprayed a healthy coat of Plasti Dip Black on the inside portions and any areas that would be seen. I let that dry and then sprayed the PD Gloss Enhancer on top of that to give it a shine. One pic the GE was not totally dry. I sprayed the pieces in a field near the house to prevent any type of overspray. I do not suggest doing this near a car. I took all bolts and plastic plugs and nuts and washed them by hand with a brush to clean them up. Re-installed the liners and they looked amazing. Here are some pictures of what they will look like. When outside in the sun, the wells look totally clean like they are supposed to and really helps the appearance of the car.







As you can see in the next two pictures the well areas are extremely difficult to tell anything other than a dark space. That is what you want in the end. Hope this helps some of you in cleaning up the appearance of your vehicle.

 

Quality work @SherrifDep

The brake calipers look awesome after the painting!

 

Wow that is very thorough, looks great. Never thought of using some of the gloss/shine products on the fender liners.

 

Looks awesome!!!!

 

Looks great!

I actually replaced my liners and within a week drove through a freshly paved area and have tar built up in the wells.

Any tips to remove tar from the plastic liners?

 

Try to use Stoners Tar Remover and that works great. If that doesn't, (i.e..... you cannot just scrape and pop off the nubs) you can try some of the different types of Goo Gone. I cannot remember what chemical dissolves the tar offhand, but that is what would be best. Shouldn't hurt that plastic that is used so likely can be heavily rubbed on. Try a test spot area first, might discolor it though.

For you, you can use something like Opti-Seal to spray the liners down and that will keep that black sheen and eliminate the use of APC (just soap and water) for many months ahead.

On brand new cars, I will typically just spray the liners and all black plastic areas down with that product. Gives many many months of protection from the elements, and keeps them looking fresh and they don't fade out. Clean and re-apply 9 months later or so just to keep them nice. My parents Explorer has a ton of American black plastic on it, and I sprayed 2 years ago all of theirs. It is still 30k later black and clean.

 

Brocephus... you make awesome threads. Keep doing it. Love the clean suspension.

FWIW, I had to replace one of my front liners and I recall it being about $50. I need to replace my rear liners. Too many burnouts.

 

Had looked on parts.com or one of those and for the E63 I think they were 80ish, but the front ones are two pieces and those were like 60ish ea. Then ship. So maybe slightly less than a bill ea total.

In your case not sure how well PD would work due to the rubber coming off the tires. Honestly I haven't done a burn out YET!!!!!. MY luck something always breaks.


If you like my posts, I am quite surprised this one is getting some love, but the other one which I though was more info for us AMG'ers for calipers isn't. Give it some love too if you haven't seen it. https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...ake-lines.html

 

damm thing looks like it just rolled out of the factory line lol bravo

 

clean, could never get mine to stay that clean, gets driven in all weathers!

 

seriously awesome!

to be honest, the rust buildup on the rotors was driving me nuts in the whole series of pics LOL I know it's just oxidation - but try photoshopping out the rotors and look at the pics again, I bet the wheel well really pops even more then!

 

Ok, so next up is painting or conditioning the rotors. Yes that is driving me nuts also. I for the most rust parts on the rotor just washed the car, and dried it with a blower, so that rust is just what oxidized in a few moments. Once driven i should have taken the pics, will see what I can do to correct this.

 

This was awesome until I saw the Pic with the old adhesive from wheel balancing - that stuff drive me nuts!

 

I am working a solution to those. Yes they do drive me nuts, but small potatoes compared to the larger project of the Paint Correction, then Front rear bumpers re-sprayed, adding the diffuser/lip, wheel wells sorted, rockers taken off and re-sprayed, Hood (not painted due to pain in the rear to do, but touched up).

I want the car perfect as possible since I had 6 weeks off work. Big stuff came first, then the smaller stuff worked. Problem with that adhesive is this--- You can take most types of glue remover to it, but that will eat the clear coat on the rims. You can scrape it till removed, but the same think, clear coat damaged. Now not many people even care, but I want my inside barrels as nice as the can be also. So trying to find something (not looked hard for the moment) to help remove it that won't damage the clear coat. For now the wheels have glass coat on the clear inside and out so at least they are protected at this point. I am just nitpicking each thing as it comes. Due to @Toadster , his post about the rust, I ordered new rear rotors and pads tonight for it. Front will wait no matter what for a few months then RB rotors will be bought. Need to be done at some point anyway. After front bumper, rockers, and lip go on it tomorrow maybe I will tackle that adhesive. I will have a full paint correction write up soon, just want it back together first. Then pics and process to help others out. I will add the process to remove that adhesive to this thread though. If anyone has ideas or solutions to problems please add to this thread so we can start having specific threads cover everything possible in those areas. That way we can tell people to search more instead of having 20 threads covering same thing. Thanks for the comments it pushes me to get it done.

 

WD40 and Scotch bright pad and patience - this is the only thing that removes glue without damage to anything. On body paint - skip the Scotch Bright pad and replace with extra time and your finger rub.

 

Try a heat gun and plastic scraper on the adhesive

 

I'm pretty sure this counts as emotional neglect of your beast.

 

I am dealing with the rear end swaying as of now, if something is wrong my luck I will break something. When these PSS wear down I will do it at a red light right in front of a Prius for sure. The Beast will be glowing after that. LOL

Tire pressure is 40 front and 44 rear, Eurocharged tune now also. So more pwrrrrr to control. From a stop it chirps and skips and stay straight till top of second into third. Sways all through from that point. Not sure if its slight spin, sandy roads affecting it, but jumped on it in second in a turn today and wow swayed bad. Its the tires road power combination for sure, but feels weird at the same time. All my past E63's and the High Performance cars didnt feel this way. Will work it out sometime. Car runs really good otherwise. 26mpg on Highway. 19 city. yes I baby it slightly normal driving.