Car: All cars that have fenders and rubbing tires!

Cost: Probably less than $10, unless you don't own a baseball bat.

Required Tools: A wooden baseball bat, a heat gun, your car jack, rags, under-body rust-proofing goo (*optional), & a small chair.

Time: About 1 hour per fender.

The Problem:

For those of you who have chosen to buy larger wheels and/or wider tires and your car is lowered, you may have heard the 'squeak' noise that occurs when you hit a bump in the road and your rear fender lip chooses to take a chunk out of your tire's side-wall! As you have probably already noticed, there is a relatively sharp 'lip' on the inside of your rear fender which you will need to bend up in order to stop the rubbing... this is known as 'rolling your fenders.' I have 17"x7.5" wheels (35mm offset) with 215/40/17 tires and I quite a bit of rubbing on the passenger side of my car. Tire widths must vary per tire manufacturer because I know some people with the same size tires and they have no rubbing (or VW might have installed my trailing arm off to one side and that is why only one side rubs.)

The Solution:

I found a web-site that already does an excellent job of showing how to perform this modification, so I'm only going to offer some additional advice that I think may help.

The page address: http://integra.vtec.net/wheels/rollfender.html Yes, I know it's a Acura page!

Tips:

1. 1. Don't try to do too much too soon. Take your time to avoid cracking the paint on the inside of your fender. I 'rushed' the second fender I did and it cracked quite a bit. I coated the lip with some black under-body protector to hopefully keep it safe from rust. It may also help to use a heat gun to warm the paint before working on it to make the paint somewhat more flexible.
2. Put a rag between you car and the bat... this will keep the paint from the bat form damaging the paint on your car.
3. You'll constantly need to raise and lower your car with the jack in order to get the bat in and out of the fender... make sure you have your wheels chocked so your car doesn't roll back unexpectedly.
4. Only roll as much as you need to! Don't risk cracking the paint by trying to roll the whole lip (like I did!) I've been told that you only need to roll the very top of the lip. I'd suggest rolling a little, then drive your car to see if you've cured you problem.
5. Make sure you have a small chair available or your back will be killing you from bending over!

Todd Taylor
'97 GTI VR6