Reason not to have mudflaps! :cry:

[greentouring]

Today been sanding down and rust treating the sills before respraying satin black. The front mud flap was loose, so removed it to clean behind and found this!!



I can't afford to change the wing and have it resprayed. The next MOT is due on 2009 (March).

I have begun rubbing down the rust after taking this picture, and the whole edge is gone at the bottom! The rest of the car and panels are solid though.

I'm going to take it to the bare metal, use some filler, rust treat, prime then respray sill, finally replacing mudflap. Any other ideas?

Can I change the wing myself if I had to and was would it involve? Any ideas would be of great help............

Very saddened by this discovery on my beloved touring!

[Ziggy]

The next MOT is due on 2009 (March).

That's a long time!
But a dodgy wing won't fail an MOT anyway...

The other good news is that changing a wing is easy; nuts & bolts. Just keep an eye out for a good one in the right colour

[toby]

Bad luck. Mudflaps are rust traps nowadays.
Found the same thing on my touring but not as bad.
Wing is easy to change - bumper off, inner plastic wing our and unbolt.
If you get a replacement wing, get one from a similar aged car as the wings vary. They are interchangeable but you have to trim part of the inner section out.

[320Touring]

that aint a rusty wing...

THIS is a rusty wing!

Took the front wings off…

This is the “Good wingâ€a looks like 17 years in St Andrews next to the North Sea were not the best...




This is the “bad oneâ€a

[darkchild]

[Ajay325]

shit im scared now, need to check my mudflaps! don't worry though mate, worst comes to worst your idea of treating the area and replacing the mudflap sounds a good fix to me, you just need to make sure the rust doesn't appear again.

Good luck.

[greentouring]

Cheers guys, I was in a bit of a flap but calmed down now. Not nice to see your car begin rusting......

It's dark now, but rubbed it to bare metal and treated for rust. The rust remover I'm using (some French brand) doesn't seem to dry, even in the relatively warm weather........Do they normally take a while?

[Gortour]

Alex, have a word with FAB, they're BMW fraggers.
Tell em you want a lagoon green wing, and which side, and they may be able to sort one.
Want a drivers side one for my turd to get rid of the rust in the front edge of the arch, but not much spare cash at mo.

Only prob for you, don't know if they'd deliver to France, or how much, they tend to deliver everything on their own transport as they were getting too many damaged panels.

www.fabdirect.com

Cheers

[greentouring]

Cheers Gordon, I will bookmark them for later; I'm totally skint too.......... I must come back to the UK to get a load of parts, including a dashboard from Chris, but that will be next year, if I'm not already living back in the UK.