# Fender Flare and Mud Flap Install > Wheel arch flares, quarter fenders, poly fenders, and mud flap hangers fitted with brackets and hardware that survive highway air and wash bays. Source: https://fleetservicesocrv.com/services/glass-and-accessories/fender-flare-and-mud-flap-install Business: Fleet Services OCRV, 23281 E La Palma Ave, Yorba Linda, CA 92887 Phone: (714) 909-1844. Serving Santa Ana, California, about 17 miles from the facility. Fender flare and mud flap installation fits wheel arch flares, quarter fenders, poly fenders, and mud flap hanger assemblies to a commercial unit so road spray, stone throw, and tire wash are controlled, using bracket and fastener methods that survive highway airflow and daily wash bay pressure. ## Specification - Price range: $200 to $800 - Labor hours: 1 to 4 hours - Turnaround: Light cosmetic - Insurance: typically customer pay or fleet account ## Symptoms - Mud flaps torn through at the top bolt row - Flaps sailing up horizontally at highway speed - Cracked or split flare edge with fasteners pulled through - Heavy road film and stone chipping along the lower body sides - Poly fender sagging or rubbing against the tire - Missing flap leaving spray thrown onto following traffic ## Why do mud flaps keep tearing off the same unit? The flap is rarely the problem. What fails is the hanger and the fastener pattern behind it. A flap hung on a light or bent bracket has nothing holding its top edge rigid, so at speed the airflow lifts it, it sails back toward horizontal, and all of that load concentrates on the top bolt row. Given a few weeks the flap simply tears through the holes. The correct assembly starts with a proper hanger, commonly square tube in the two to two and a half inch range, mounted rigidly to the frame or to a body crossmember rather than to a light bracket. From there the flap is clamped between a backing bar and the hanger face across its full width, so load is spread instead of concentrated at individual bolt holes. For tractor and long wheelbase positions, anti sail brackets do the rest. They tie the lower outboard corner back so the flap cannot fold up into the moving air, which both stops the tearing and keeps spray suppression working at the speeds where it matters. On short Santa Ana city routes anti sail hardware matters less, on regional runs east on the SR-91 it matters a lot. - Square tube hangers sized for the position rather than reused light brackets - Full width backing bar so clamping load spreads across the flap edge - Anti sail brackets on tractor and long wheelbase positions - Hanger mounted to frame or crossmember, not to a lamp bracket - Flap height set to clear obstacles without leaving a spray gap - Fastener heads and washers sized so they cannot pull through the material ## How are wheel arch flares actually attached? There are three real methods and they are not interchangeable. Bolt through mounting with backing washers is the most secure and leaves visible fasteners. Rivnut mounting sets threaded inserts into the body so the flare can be removed and refitted repeatedly without chewing up the holes. Adhesive mounting with automotive grade tape gives the cleanest look but depends entirely on surface prep and cure temperature. Most commercial work ends up as a combination. Rivnuts carry the structural load at the primary mounting points, tape closes the edge so water and grit cannot get behind the flare, and an edge gasket takes up the gap where the flare contours do not perfectly follow a body that has been repaired before. That combination survives a pressure wash wand, which pure tape often does not. Prep decides whether adhesive mounting holds at all. The surface has to be cleaned, wiped with the correct activator, and brought to temperature before the tape touches it. Sticking a flare onto a cold panel in a yard is why so many of them peel at the leading edge within a few months. Indoors, at controlled temperature, with proper prep, the same tape holds for years. - Rivnut inserts for repeatable removal without hole damage - Backing washers wherever a fastener passes through thin skin - Automotive grade adhesive tape only after activator and correct temperature - Edge gasket to close gaps on previously repaired body contours - Drilled penetrations sealed and coated against corrosion - Flare edge relationship to the tire checked at full lock and load ## What do flares and flaps actually protect on a fleet unit? The visible benefit is the lower body. Tires throw stones, grit, and water in a fan that hits the rocker, the lower door, the box side, and everything mounted below the beltline. Without spray control, that fan sandblasts paint off the lower panels, and once the coating is gone the coastal air moving through Santa Ana starts working on bare metal. Flares and flaps are inexpensive corrosion prevention. The second benefit is everything you carry. Spray thrown up under a body finds harnesses, lamp housings, connector bodies, and mounting hardware. Fleets that fight recurring lamp and connector corrosion on the same axle positions very often have missing or wrong sized flaps at those positions, and fixing the spray control ends the recurring electrical complaints. The third is other road users. A tractor or box truck running without adequate flaps on a wet SR-55 throws a curtain that blinds the car behind it and fires stones at their windshield. That is a liability exposure and it is also a visible sign of a fleet that is not maintained. Both are worth more than the couple hundred dollars the hardware costs. ## Can flares and flaps carry fleet branding? Yes, and it is one of the more cost effective places to put it. Mud flaps take printed or embossed graphics well, unit numbers can be applied to flap faces where they stay readable, and reflective marking on flap and flare edges adds visibility at the exact height where a following driver looks. It is a lot cheaper than adding graphics area anywhere else on the unit. The practical caution is service life. A flap is a wear item that lives in road spray and gets hit by curbs and debris, so branding on flaps needs to be something you are willing to replace. Fleets usually specify a plain flap for high wear positions and a branded flap where it is most visible, rather than branding every position and reordering constantly. We coordinate this with whatever else is happening on the unit. If a unit is in for refinish or graphics work anyway, doing the flap and flare package at the same time avoids a second visit and gets the whole lower body finished as one consistent job rather than a patchwork of old and new hardware. - Printed or embossed flap graphics for high visibility positions - Unit numbering applied where it stays readable through road film - Reflective edge marking on flare and flap perimeters - Plain flaps specified for high wear positions to control replacement cost - Coordinated with refinish or graphics work already scheduled ## How does this fit into a Santa Ana fleet maintenance cycle? Flare and flap work is the cheapest line in this entire category, with a published band of 200 to 800 dollars at one to four labor hours, and it turns around as light cosmetic in one to three business days. That makes it the natural thing to fold into a visit that is already happening for something else rather than scheduling its own trip out from Santa Ana. The pattern that works for most operators is a quarterly walk around where somebody actually looks at the lower body of every unit. Torn flaps, cracked flares, and missing hardware get listed, and the whole list gets addressed in one or two scheduled visits. That is far less expensive than replacing rockers and lower box panels that have been sandblasted for two years. Bring the unit to Yorba Linda, about 17 miles and 22 to 35 minutes from Santa Ana via SR-55 north to SR-91 east. Call the shop at (714) 909-1844 with a unit list and we can group the work so you are not sending trucks over one at a time. ## Questions ### How much does a set of mud flaps and hangers cost? The published band is 200 to 800 dollars at one to four labor hours, which covers most flap and flare work. A straight flap swap onto existing sound hangers sits at the bottom. New square tube hangers with anti sail brackets across multiple axle positions, or a full set of wheel arch flares with rivnut mounting, sits at the top. Everything is itemized before work starts. ### Do I need anti sail brackets on a city delivery unit? Usually not. Anti sail hardware earns its money at sustained highway speed where airflow lifts the flap toward horizontal. A unit doing short Santa Ana surface street routes rarely gets there. If the same unit runs east on the SR-91 regularly, or spends time at freeway speed between stops, anti sail brackets stop the tearing and keep spray suppression actually working. ### Will drilling for flares cause rust on my body? Not if the penetrations are handled properly. Every drilled hole gets deburred, treated, and sealed, and rivnut inserts are set with sealant so water cannot track into the cavity behind the panel. In coastal Orange County air, an untreated drilled hole is a genuine rust starter, which is why the sealing step is part of the job rather than an upsell. ### Can you fit flares to a body that has already been repaired? Yes, and it is common. Repaired arches rarely match factory contour perfectly, so the flare gets fitted with an edge gasket that takes up the variation and closes the gap. We dry fit first, check the relationship to the tire at full lock, and adjust bracket positions before anything is drilled or bonded. The result sits flat rather than gapping at one end. ### Are these covered under a collision claim? Only when they were damaged in a documented incident. Flares and flaps replaced as part of a loss go on the file with the rest of the damage. Fitting new hardware to a unit that simply never had adequate spray control is accessory work billed to the fleet. We will tell you which side of that line your unit falls on during write up. ### How quickly can you turn this around? It runs as light cosmetic, so one to three business days for most units, and often same day when the hardware is common and already on hand. Because it is quick and inexpensive, most Santa Ana operators fold it into a visit that is already scheduled for glass, paint, or panel work rather than making a dedicated trip for flaps alone.