When bigger tires and new wheels are added to a truck or SUV, the track width is often changed a bit due to the wider tire or a different backspacing in the wheel. When that happens, tires can stick out past the fenders and bedsides, allowing rocks, mud, and other debris to be easily kicked up onto the sides of your 4x4. While some off-road rash is inevitable while you’re playing in the dirt, there is no need to invite it by letting your tires kick giant rocks into your paint.
You have a few options to prevent this: You can add fiberglass, pull the steel fenders, or simply add fender flares. Adding fender flares is easiest route to go. They bolt or stick right onto the factory steel fenders and offer extended paint protection. Bushwacker has been in the fender flare business for more than 40 years and was a natural choice when we finally put flares on our ’04 Ram 2500 project truck.
Bushwacker offers everything from Street flares to giant Cut-Out flares for trucks and SUVs. We chose the OE Style fender flares from Bushwacker. They can be painted or left bare. We leave them bare so they show the least amount of damage after being scraped by debris or branches.
The Flares come with an adhesive rubber seal that gives the flare a snug fit to the steel fender and prevents it from scratching the paint (should you ever want to remove the flares).
Unless you have the wrong flare on the wrong side, it should easily fit up into place for a fitment check prior to installation.
All that was needed to secure these flares to our Ram 2500 were a few self-tapping screws that go through the couple millimeters of plastic flare and into the steel fender inside the fenderwell.
Not only did the Bushwacker OE Style fender flares give our truck a nice look, but they provide that extra bit of paint protection to prevent a lot of nasty little scratches in the future.
