Damage due to low height

i'm not that crazy anymore. now i just prefer to keep things to myself and enjoy the (relatively) peaceful marriage.

 

There are right side mirrors that automatically tilt down when you put the car in reverse to back into a space.
I'm wondering if there is one available for the left hand drive Prius?

 

That's silly. The air dam is very flexible rubber. You'll hear it but won't damage it.

The rest of the car is no lower than the Prius

 

It turns out the front corner of the air dam (a/k/a spoiler retainer) and front corner of the fender (wheel well) liner both screw to a molded loop/tab on the front bumper cover. Somehow, that loop got broken off when my air dam was damaged. Since there was nothing else holding the front of the fender liner in place, it blew down while driving on the interstate, destroying that front edge. Being a procrastinator, I eventually lost the entire fender liner when it wrapped around the wheel. I bought the air dam ($116.63) and wheel well liner ($73.49) online, from toyotapartznet.com (a/k/a Conicelli Toyota), thinking I could screw them on myself, at which point I discovered the broken loop/tab. On top of that, Toyota uses a hodgepodge of screws and plastic push tabs to hold everything together, each of which they charge $2 to $3 for (the screws are 30 cent screws at any hardware store). I was really surprised how flimsy this all is. Long story short, a local front end repair shop is taking the bumper off to repair the broken loop/tab, and putting everything back together, for a mere $200 (ouch!). Could have bought a whole bumper cover for about the same cost, but would have had to have it painted etc., so that would definitely have been much bigger bucks. For the curious, here are pictures of the 2 parts:

 

My sentiment exactly, the trim pieces and their connectors are an incredibly fussy/fragile (and expensive) mess.

The red circled junction is held together by a very substandard, rust-prone piece of junk. It also holds the front wheel spat, which is the lowest part, bound to contact curbs, and a bit of a lever arm when it does.




Here's an interior pic of ours, at around 50000 kms, west coast of BC climate. It's looking from front of vehicle, with the bottom pan pulled down a bit. There's a large diameter drain hole and through it you can see a bit of tire tread, if that helps with orientation. The 3 bolts are totally rust-fused: I broke the head off one finding out.



I would maybe try some different, more rust proof fasteners from the get go on yours, and coat them with some wax/oil to boot.

Here's an outside view of the same zone, shows the wheel spat:

 

As a follow up, my repair guy charged me less for labor on repairing the broken/missing loop, since he didn't need to take the bumper cover off the car to make the repair. By the time he added the cost of several new screws and push pins (at half price), I still wound up paying him about $200.

My old wheel liner was not nearly as rusty as Mendel's, but my car doesn't see snow and salt like his probably does.

 

Expansion style clips can range between $1 and $5 per. I'm looking for some Honda clips right now, for our son's car. I could order them from Bernardi Parts, online in the States, for about $1.35 per, but the shipping for 10 is nearly $30. I can buy them from one dealership in town that's more reasonable than the rest, works about the same as Bernardi with shipping, lol.

I prefer to stick with genuine manufacturers fasteners: I've used aftermarket, and typically they kind of explode on you, next time you pop them out: knock-offs, dimensionally similar but not abiding by the plastic spec I guess.

Also, any time you take out the fasteners: wash them out in soapy water, get the grit out. They'll last a lot longer.

 

I have a similar incident. I'm careful when pulling in, but heavy rains put some serious ruts in the gravel driveway. Must have caught one just right and bottomed on the left side. The "dent" I can see is something I can live with, but it put some nice gashes in the paint job.