Dirt, leaves; etc., trapped between fender liner and fender.

[sajohnson]

We live in the woods and usually park the BL in the garage, but when it's been left outside I noticed that a lot of what falls on the windshield and slides down by the wipers ends up on the fender liners and it slides down where the liner meets the fender and the plastic encapsulated foam that's press-fit in place.

On the driver's side, we were able to get most of the debris with a crevice tool on a small Shop Vac.

The passenger side is another story. The windshield washer fluid reservoir is right there at the top. There is enough of a gap for the stuff from the wiper area to get past it, but no way to clean it out without taking out the reservoir.

There may be some way to clean the area out from below, I haven't looked into that.

BTW -- I recall seeing a thread about this issue but I could not find it or I would have posted there. The person's concern was the same as mine -- that leaves and dirt will build up and become a moisture trap.

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[thekingprawn]

I have a couple of maple trees out front and have to deal with the seeds every year. I should probably charge up the air compressor and blow out all the detritus of living around trees.

 

[sajohnson]

I have a couple of maple trees out front and have to deal with the seeds every year. I should probably charge up the air compressor and blow out all the detritus of living around trees.

That and consider a cover if you don't have a garage.

Like I said, it may not be as much of a problem as it seems, if there is a way to access that space easily from underneath.

Still, it's just one more task to be concerned with.

 

[thekingprawn]

if you don't have a garage.

I have a garage...it's just not useable for vehicles.

 

[sajohnson]

I have a garage...it's just not useable for vehicles.

Yours and probably the majority of garages in the country.

We still have cars and an RV in ours, but there is a LOT of junk in there too.

I got carried away 20+ years ago when materials were still cheap and built a garage that's bigger than our old log cabin. There's no way we could afford to do it now. It doesn't look too out of place because it's built into the mountain, diagonally across the lane. There was room for 6 vehicles, but one space is taken up with a fridge, freezer, and some shelving.

It's also a bit difficult to get in and out of due to the fact that we have very little flat land. It's not a 'drive straight in' deal. So my wife sometimes leaves the BL on the lane.

Particularly this fall though, we're gonna have to keep it inside or cover it up.

 

[Elegance]

I've got two things in my favor - I live in AZ where there isn't a lot of mud or debris from trees, and my garage is spotless so I keep my Sport in there whenever it's not in use. That being said, I do notice gunk getting trapped up in the felt wheel liners whenever I take it on FS roads to go hiking. I usually blast off the liners with a low-powered stream from our pressure washer then leave it out in the sun to dry. I haven't experienced it to the degree that you have, but maybe a pressure washer would do the trick to get into the tough little crevice on your passenger side.

 

[sajohnson]

I've got two things in my favor - I live in AZ where there isn't a lot of mud or debris from trees, and my garage is spotless so I keep my Sport in there whenever it's not in use. That being said, I do notice gunk getting trapped up in the felt wheel liners whenever I take it on FS roads to go hiking. I usually blast off the liners with a low-powered stream from our pressure washer then leave it out in the sun to dry. I haven't experienced it to the degree that you have, but maybe a pressure washer would do the trick to get into the tough little crevice on your passenger side.

AZ is nice -- especially the Rim Country and the eastern part near the NM border.

If I understand correctly, you're talking about the side of the liners facing the tires, correct?

I could use our pressure washer for that, but just to be clear, what I'm concerned about is on the opposite side -- when you open up the hood you can see how whatever is down in the 'valley' at the base of the windshield with the wipers is dumped out either side, onto the wheel liners, where it slides down into the bottom of the 'V' between the liner, the fender, and that piece of plastic encapsulated foam (looks similar to a type of packing material) that's stuffed into place.

Since the debris is trapped down in that 'V' shaped space, the pressure washer would not clean it out.

We can reach it on the driver's side with the crevice tool on the vacuum, but there's no access (not from under the hood) on the passenger side because of the washer fluid bottle.

I need to poke around more and see if (say) that foam can be moved enough to get to that space.

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